Kentucky’s counseling problem

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 24th of September.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Up first…controversy over psychiatric counseling.

Last Wednesday, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear signed an executive order … unexpectedly.

BESHEAR: We see you, we care about you. And now I’m gonna sign an executive order ending conversion therapy in Kentucky.

MARY REICHARD: Conversion therapy is the practice of using psychiatry to change a person’s sexual attraction. Until 1973, psychiatrists classified homosexuality as a mental illness that warranted treatment. Those therapies have since been abandoned.

NICK EICHER: Many Christian counselors instead use treatment based on biblical principles to guide patients away from unwanted same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria. But now they are concerned that Beshear’s executive order bans any licensed counseling based on Biblical values.

WORLD’s Travis Kircher reports from the Kentucky capitol.

TRAVIS KIRCHER: About a dozen speakers gathered in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol Friday morning. They included Christian counselors, state legislators, and theologians—all of whom were speaking out against Governor Andy Beshear’s executive order banning conversion therapy for minors.

One of those speakers—Richard Nelson of the Commonwealth Policy Center—says he agrees with the governor’s view that psychiatric conversion therapy is harmful.

RICHARD NELSON: As we said in this conference, we are opposed to physically abusive practices, shame-based practices. Uncategorically, we're opposed to that.

He says the problem is that the governor’s definition of conversion therapy is overly broad and would prohibit any counseling that would point a struggling minor toward adherence to a Biblical view of sexuality.

NELSON: The governor is essentially saying that anybody who tries to help a minor identify with their born gender—in their in a heterosexual identity— that they are wrong. And that's a problem.

The order defines conversion therapy as any practice, treatment, or intervention that seeks or purports to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. That includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.

The governor’s order requires licensed counselors to support a minor’s same-sex attraction or gender expression or at the very least, remain neutral. And it goes on to prohibit the use of state or federal funding for any form of treatment that refuses to do so. State licensing boards are also authorized to discipline professionals who fail to comply.

JONATHAN BENNETT: They're confused about their identity. We want to give them a certainty in their identity that they are in Christ.

Jonathan Bennett describes himself as a Gospel-based Biblical counselor. Because he’s not licensed in Kentucky, he can’t be penalized by the governor’s executive order, but the order does urge him to report licensed counselors who fail to comply.

Bennett says affirming a sinful sexual lifestyle or gender identity is no different than telling an alcoholic he or she can’t change and that goes against the Gospel.

BENNETT: Alcoholics Anonymous and those kind of 12 step programs will teach you, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, or once an addict, always an addict. The scriptures say the opposite. Whatever your sin of choice is, and whatever lifestyle you've embraced, and whatever identity you have embraced, that is not you anymore you are in if you're a Christian, you are in Christ, and God sees you as righteous. He sees you as righteous like his son, and that is your identity.

But Governor Beshear sees it differently. Just down the hall from Friday’s gathering, he was holding his weekly press conference. I asked the governor how he would respond to counselors who say his executive order requires them to go against historic Christian teachings on sexuality. The governor doubled down.

BESHEAR: I am a Christian. My faith tells me that I'm supposed to love everyone, everyone. And that means everyone, regardless of their sexuality.

But Nelson says Christian counselors show love by guiding children to a Biblical view of sexuality.

NELSON: We're told to love our neighbors, but loving our neighbors, and in particular, children, means that we intercede for them. And when there are minor children struggling with sexual identity issues, then we need to intercede.

The question now is whether Beshear’s executive order will stand up in court. GOP state representative Josh Calloway admits it caught legislators off-guard.

JOSH CALLOWAY: On Tuesday evening an email goes out at 5:30 that says this is gonna happen at 10 am the next morning. None of us had seen the executive order. It was kept very close—very tight—for a reason. And so the public is really just now being informed that this has happened.

Republican state representative Shane Baker says Beshear signed the order because the General Assembly repeatedly voted down similar bans in prior legislation. He says that puts the order on shaky ground.

SHANE BAKER: The legislature is elected to write law. The governor is not. He is to, to execute the law that's written by the, by the legislature, the people's body. And he's overstepped his constitutional authority in what he's done in this executive order, and yes, we will fight it.

Calloway says the state’s Republican attorney general is already reviewing the order and lawsuits are also in the works. I asked Governor Beshear if he believes his executive order will withstand legal scrutiny.

BESHEAR: I expect it to hold up in court. Every major medical association has said that so-called conversion therapy harms and significantly harms children.

But representative Calloway says if the legal options don’t work, he and his fellow lawmakers will take legislative action when the state General Assembly reconvenes in January.

CALLOWAY: And on day one, if it's not fixed, we will have a bill filed to repeal it.

Richard Nelson says it’s not personal. It’s about holding the governor to the Christian values he espouses.

NELSON: There was a group of us that prayed for the governor before this press conference began. We pray that he would seek God, but also that he would be faithful Biblically, too.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Travis Kircher from the state Capitol Building in Frankfort, Kentucky.

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