For years, Connecticut officials—including Attorney General William Tong—defended laws like HB 6695 by claiming they regulate “conduct,” not speech. The Supreme Court in Chiles v. Salazar has now rejected that premise, making clear that conversations between counselors and their clients are protected by the First Amendment and cannot be restricted by the State based on viewpoint.

“Families and persons in Connecticut should be free to seek guidance that reflects their values” states Peter Wolfgang, Executive Director of the Family Institute of Connecticut.

“Conversion therapy” today is considered anything that isn’t immediately “affirming” a child who says they’re the opposite sex.

HB 6695 was sold to the Connecticut legislature as a ban on “conversion therapy”; a barbaric, but long abandoned therapeutic practice that utilized shock therapy or isolation. But the bill was intentionally broad and included references to “gender” and “gender identity”. It was immediately interpreted to prevent any therapeutic resistance to a child’s assertion that they were “born in the wrong body”. This “affirmation only” model became, by design, the only model of therapy available in Connecticut for dysphoric children, even if a family desired a sex realist approach.

Connecticut’s law prohibiting anything less than “affirmation only” has been a one-way ticket to “social affirmation” and then medicalizing our children with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and even surgery. Untold numbers of children and families in Connecticut have been mislead and devastated by this “one size fits all” restriction.

Accept the person, not the identity.

Counselors should be free to speak honestly with their clients without fear of state punishment or concern if their speech does not automatically “(B) provide acceptance, support” for a false gender identity or expression. The government should never have been in the business of restricting conversations to one-sided viewpoints that favor “affirmation only”. This ruling makes clear that HB 6695 (now section 19a-907 of the CGS) is likely unconstitutional. It is time for Connecticut lawmakers to revisit this law and bring it into compliance with the First Amendment.

FIC Action was the only organization to publicly question the need for HB 6695.

In 2017, Family Institute of Connecticut Action was the only organization to publicly question a bill to ban “conversion therapy” in Connecticut. Our critiques that the law was unnecessary and probably unconstitutional were correct and our positions, along with legislators who resisted, have been vindicated in an 8-1 Supreme Court ruling declaring a similar Colorado law unconstitutional.

From the day of the public hearing on March 7, 2017, the Hartford Courant reported . . .

‘Those who do question the proposed bill, such as Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, are seeking data on pervasiveness of conversion therapy in Connecticut “According to our research, we haven’t been able to turn up any evidence that [conversion therapy] actually exists in Connecticut, and if they have actual evidence they should put it forward. It appears to be a solution in search of a problem,” Wolfgang said. “There are thousands of bills for the legislature and only a small portion get a public hearing. Tomorrow we’re going to get one to outlaw a thing that does not exist,” he said.”

In another news report . . “Right now to us this looks like a solution in search of a problem,” Wolfgang said. “This doesn’t exist anywhere in Connecticut.” He said it’s just a “strong lobby flexing its muscles.”

FIC’s e-blast on HB5499 from 2017 defended legislators who also resisted this legislation . . .

 Call to Action 
“Conversion Therapy”: What Happened, And May Happen, in CT
“Conversion therapy” was the single biggest Nothing-Burger issue we have ever seen in all the years we have fought the anti-family agenda at our state Capitol.Our biggest concern is not the mythical thing the bill claimed to ban but, rather, the repercussions the new law may have for all the rest of us.As a recent email from the CT Catholic Conference puts it, “Conversion therapy is the name given to any efforts by a licensed medical professional or counselor to convert a minor identifying as gay or transsexual to identify as heterosexual.”
But there is no evidence that that this practice exists in Connecticut. Watch this video beginning at about the 14:49 mark, as Sen. Len Suzio asks Sen. Beth Bye for an uncomfortably long six minutes for data on the practice of conversion therapy in Connecticut.
Sen. Suzio asked for “studies or statistics or data” on the prevalence of conversion therapy in our state and all he got in response from Sen. Bye were comments like “I anecdotally heard of a couple of cases,” “I and my friends have heard sad stories,” and so forth. For this, all but eight legislators passed a law which the Governor signed immediately.
Family Institute of Connecticut was the first – indeed, only – organization to publicly note that the conversion therapy ban was a solution in search of a problem. That did not sit well with our old friend, the Connecticut-can’t-give-her-enough-awards local gay activist Anne Stanback. You can see Anne’s references to FIC at the 2:37 mark in this Facebook video of a rally that was erroneously described by the media as attended by “hundreds.” (We were there. It was about 50 people.) Anne cited FIC’s request that LGBT activists name the therapists doing conversion therapy in Connecticut and then she changed the subject, proving that she cannot answer the question. Anne claimed FIC had not condemned abusive practices. In fact, we had. Most of all, Anne seemed to be jonesing for a fight with FIC. But a fight over what? An Act Concerning the Banning of Unicorns?What did concern FIC was the bill’s overly broad definition of “conversion therapy.” Would, say, a Christian book seller be in violation of the law for selling a book that teaches the Biblical truth about human sexuality? How would that affect all the rest of us who proclaim what the Bible teaches on these matters? Toward that end, FIC’s work on this bill mostly focused on encouraging churches to defend their own free speech rights, with disappointing results. See, for instance, this LifeSite News article. FIC is second to none in our frequent criticism of Connecticut Republicans for their social liberalism. But in the case of the conversion therapy ban, how much can we expect of the CT GOP when the churches themselves barely spoke up? To be sure, there was some small effort to address our free speech concerns. The Catholic Conference was granted an amendment that slightly narrowed the scope of the bill in the House:
And see the legislative intent made clear by Sen. John Kissel beginning at the 35 minute mark in this video of the Senate discussion. The problem is that we will not know if the amendment and legislative intent was strong enough to protect the free speech and parental rights of Connecticut’s pro-family citizens until we see how the law is implemented. If our worst fears are realized our friends on the other side will get the fight they were looking for. In fact, it will be the biggest fight they have seen in years. And we promise you, the churches will rise up for that one. We’ll be watching. The only group speaking up early and often, the only one sounding the alarm.