A fight for freedom and truth

Imagine entering a counselor’s office with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and being told that you could only receive counsel meant to affirm that anxiety rather than overcome it. Such a reality seems nonsensical, but following a 2024 executive order from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, counselors across Kentucky—especially Christian counselors—were given those instructions on issues of gender and sexuality.

Under Executive Order 2024-632, counselors were under threat of license revocation for sharing with counselees the truth about God’s design for gender and sexuality. They could affirm an individual’s desire to undergo gender mutilating surgery—something illegal for minors in the Commonwealth—or to engage in homosexual acts, but counselors could not speak against such feelings—even if that counsel was based upon sincere religious conviction. As a result, Kentucky became the latest state to effectively outlaw truth in the practice of counseling. Under the guise of removing the harmful message of Christianity—not to mention natural law—from counseling, the state government instead sanctioned a different religious narrative: that of harmful, hedonistic paganism.

When the state’s General Assembly convened in January of 2025, many conservative members knew something had to be done. To that end, House Bill 495, introduced by State Rep. David Hale (R-Menifee), nullifies Beshear’s executive order and any future order or administrative regulation that is identical or substantially similar to Order 2024-632. In addition, a Senate committee substitute introduced language that prohibits state Medicaid funding and managed care organizations that contract with the state Medicaid program from paying for gender reassignment surgeries and medications. Though the bill passed from both chambers with overwhelming majorities, Beshear is expected to veto the legislation.

Government restrictions on so-called “conversion therapy” are nothing new. Upon signing the order in 2024, Beshear made Kentucky the 24th state—not including the District of Columbia—to enact these regulations. The Supreme Court also recently agreed to hear a case from Colorado involving that state’s ban on the practice. Pushing back against such orders—and against the sexual revolution more generally—is of paramount importance for Christians seeking to be salt and light in their communities.

Liberal politicians who favor restricting religious and free speech on issues of sexuality and gender often use explicitly religious language to make their case. When he signed the executive order, Gov. Beshear used a familiar line, saying, “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God, and where practices are endangering and even harming those children, we must act.”

Certainly, to the extent that any person—especially a minor—is exposed to physical abuse or sexually explicit material in the process of counseling, those actions ought to be condemned and those responsible should be held to account. However, the definition of conversion therapy incorporated in these laws, and in Beshear’s order, is not narrowly tailored to these ends. Instead, the order’s definition of conversion therapy is so broad as to include any speech meant to affirm God’s design for human sexuality.

Christians must address this pressing issue from a place of loving conviction. Our commitment to orthodoxy ought to be loving, because certainly individuals experiencing same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria are often suffering. However, their suffering is not caused by being born in the wrong body. Instead, it is caused by being born into sin—a phenomenon that is not unique to them.

This is where our biblical convictions must enter the conversation. As I stated in my testimony to the Kentucky Senate Standing Committee on Health Services, the most loving thing we can do for someone is to point them toward Christ, and thus away from their sin. Telling someone that their actions are contrary to God’s design is not unloving or harmful as supporters of the executive order would claim. Rather, it is unloving to allow someone to continue living in sin unwarned of the consequences (Proverbs 27:6, Hebrews 12:5-6). However, to share the good news of John 3:16 requires first sharing the bad news of Genesis 3.

In restricting the religious and free speech of counselors, the government is not actually removing religion from the counseling process. They are simply declaring which religion is acceptable and which is not. In the words of J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, “Paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature, whereas Christianity is the religion of the broken heart.” With these restrictions, paganism more clearly becomes the state-sanctioned religion. Christians cannot and should not in good conscience stand idle at such a reality, and HB 495 is a good first step.