Senate Bill 121, sponsored by Albuquerque Democrat Jacob Candelaria, seeks to punish any therapist who engages in what Candelaria — and now 75 fellow legislators — call "conversion therapy." The bill has passed the Senate, 32-6 and the House 44-23. These 76 legislators define conversion therapy as:
"any practice or treatment that seeks to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, including any effort to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward persons of the same sex."
To be clear, there are four separate prohibitions in this definition. Under this bill, therapists will be punished for any practice or treatment that seeks to do any one of four separate things:
1) change a person's sexual orientation
2) change a person's gender identity
3) change behaviors or gender expressions
4) eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward persons of the same sex
Did Legislators Actually Read This Bill?
The bill is ostensibly aimed at individuals under 18 years of age, but what if such a person is expressing dangerous, harmful, or inappropriate "behaviors" or "gender expressions"?
Apparently, according to this bill and their votes, legislators don't believe that any behavior or expression falls into such a category. The sky is the limit, and if you seek to interfere with such limits, you're now going to be violating the law — at least in the mightily progressive State of New Mexico.
What if a therapist notes "sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward persons of the same sex" and one of those persons is a young girl's mother? Or a young boy's father? Or a girl's sister? Or a boy's brother? Mighty fine under this bill. Any interference or questioning of such romantic attractions would be unlawful.
What if there are "sexual or romantic feelings" or activities being initiated by an adult — actions, approaches, and resultant feelings that leave a child confused, bewildered, or in possession of these same "feelings," and the child is seeking help?
The answer from the New Mexico Legislature is: "Watch it, mind your step, we're damn sure watching you—and whatever you do, it had better not be anything that even suggests or hints that anything that touches on "same-sex" is inappropriate in any way.
(Presumably any contact or feelings between a son and mother, or a daughter and father, could be "treated." That would be troubling. But nothing that involves "same-sex" issues can ever be troubling. Homosexuality is always sacrosanct.)
What if a 17-year-old boy expresses "sexual or romantic attractions or feelings" toward a 3-year-old boy he has been hired to babysit or look after regularly?
Under this bill there can be no practice or treatment to discourage or even counsel an individual that such "attractions" or "feelings" could be problematic. If a therapist believes she notes something troubling or worrisome in a same-sex scenario, she just has to let it go.
If you say, "Wait, that's not what's intended by the bill," you may or may not be correct. All we can say is that the bill as it is written provides no protections for the 17-year-old, and no protections for the 3-year-old either. If you disagree, please show us where any protection exists for any of the categories we have described.
FEELINGS? Seriously, they Wrote the word "feelings" into this bill. How on Earth do Legislators Know what "Feelings" Kids Have? How do Therapists?
This bill actually states that a therapist cannot do anything that interferes with
"attractions or feelings toward persons of the same sex."
How on earth do even psychologists or psychiatrists ferret out what any person's actual "feelings" are? How is that discerned?
NO LEGISLATOR TOOK THIS ISSUE SERIOUSLY
We listened intently to the debate (if it can be called that) on this bill. And we discussed the bill with legislators. Both exercises revealed a wasteland of intellectual bankruptcy. It was a travesty. There was not a single, solitary, intellectually curious or even subject-related question or exchange of information.
The proponents of the bill pushed the bill for emotional reasons and, sadly, opponents of the bill opposed it for emotional reasons, or for reasons based on theological underpinnings.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND POP CULTURE RUN WILD
Conservatives, or publications that are right-of-center, such as this one, have long held the view that sexual behavior among consenting adults is no one's business, least of all the government's.
Today all Democrats, or almost all, are overwhelmed by the phenomenon of "political correctness," which is a synonym for valuing some form of emotion or fantasy over logic and reason.
But guess what? So are many Republicans and even otherwise intelligent conservatives.
The pressure to conform is enormous, and many Republicans don't have the courage to question or resist that pressure. They fear being called names more than they value serious reflection and thought.
Homofascism: Whether you Understand it, or are aware of it, makes no difference. IT is REAL
The Urban Dictionary defines homofascist as:
"An advocate of an authoritarian system of government and social organization that enables and promotes special privileges for homosexuals and makes people who do not agree with such political goals subordinate to whatever laws he or she can succeed in enforcing."
As used in a sentence:
"His insistence on placing mandatory teaching about homosexuals in the public school curriculum, and only in a positive light, and her support of forcing private vendors to produce products that celebrate homosexual sex are proof they are homofascist."
The homosexual lobby (and yes there is one, and it is large and aggressive) has long lobbied for approval — governmental approval and endorsement of how homosexuals, bisexuals, and other non-heterosexuals HAVE SEX. That is correct: they want approval and endorsement of the ways in which they manifest their sexuality.
While heterosexuals don't actually care what homosexuals do in private, that endorsement is not only central to the homosexual movement, FORCED, affirmed, approval by others, in fact by all, is the political objective. And they are achieving it.
Why do you think they want the government to force bakers and pastry chefs to bake cakes that show a "wedding couple" holding hands or engaged in other forms of intimacy?
Senate Bill 121 is nothing more than yet another effort by this lobby to intimidate the rest of society into group thought and acceptance of what is in essence the religious convictions of homosexual activists. We say "religious" precisely because there is no way to prove many — if not most or even all — of their propositions and beliefs.
Despite aggressive assertions, there is nothing about Homosexuality, Bisexuality or Transgenderism that is Science-based or Medically-based
Psychiatry, psychology and psychopharmacology cannot be compared to hard medicine. They simply cannot be.
They are all involved in the attempts to subjectively map, analyze and produce narratives concerning theorized or unevidenced physical, mental, and emotional phenomena.
Meanwhile, cardiology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, nephrology, immunology, pulmonology, gynecology, and many other hard specialties of medicine rely on clinical observation of physical events. They are all hard science.
Comparing them with psychology is like comparing physics and biology to political science or even women's studies.
So, for example, we can make scientific observations and draw evidence-based conclusions about the heart. But if we start by immediately saying the heart is good, and we can learn nothing more about it we are really limiting ourselves. And if we further add that people who have doubts about how the heart might function are evil, or are haters, or are "cardio-phobic," then we are not really going to learn much more about the heart than we already know.
On the contrary, we will achieve no more new scientific discoveries about the heart. All that will happen will be the reinforcement of arbitrary preferences that conform with the "thoughts" of those who believe there is nothing more to learn about the heart.
This is where we are regarding human sexuality. And the homofascists — who are, by the way, violent and intimidating in civic action — are the modern-day equivalents of the Luddites and the Know-nothings. They have all the answers and they will brook no argument, let alone further study.
All this is laughable in light of SB 121 when you consider that that bill defines sexual orientation as:
"heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality, whether actual or perceived."
Two things come to mind immediately:
1) Who on earth defines a kidney as "an organ that forms and excretes urine, regulates fluid, and electrolyte balance, and acts as an endocrine gland, whether actual or perceived."
2) There are only three "sexual orientations"now?
The answer to number one is that no one defines a hard medicine term like that. Why? Because it's real, solid and observable. In sharp contrast, virtually everything about sexuality falls into the realm of relatively soft medicine and soft science.
As for the answer to the second question, that is NOT what the homosexual and other alternative sex lobbies have been saying. They have been saying that there are actually over 70 sexual orientations now.
The fact that for this bill only they are simplifying the definition shows that the entire bill is an artificial construct designed to achieve a temporary goal, and the language and definitions are meant to tide everyone over until the next assault on the law — and the next assault on societal norms.
Legislators who did NOT Fall for This
Legislators who in this day and time have both intellectual honesty and — more important— the courage and self-confidence to withstand popular culture and its pressures and daily-generated fears, need to be recognized. They are:
Senator Gregory A. Baca, R-Belen
Senator Craig W. Brandt, R-Rio Rancho
Senator Carroll H. Leavell, R-Jal
Senator Cliff R. Pirtle, R-Roswell
Senator William E. Sharer, R-Farmington
Senator Pat Woods, R-Broadview
Representative Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena
Representative Alonzo Baldonado, R-Los Lunas
Representative Paul C. Bandy, R-Aztec
Representative Cathrynn N. Brown, R-Carlsbad
Representative Sharon Clahchischilliage, R-Kirtland
Representative Randal S. Crowder, R-Clovis
Representative Candy Spence Ezzell, R-Roswell
Representative David Gallegos, R-Eunice
Representative Jimmie C. Hall, R-Albuquerque
Representative Yvette Herrell, R-Alamogordo
Representative Larry A. Larrañaga, R-Albuquerque
Representative Tim D. Lewis, R-Rio Rancho
Representative Rick Little, R-Chaparral
Representative Rod Montoya, R-Farmington
Representative Greg Nibert, R-Roswell
Representative Jane Powdrell-Culbert, R-Corrales
Representative William R. "Bill" Rehm, R-Albuquerque
Representative Dennis J. Roch, R-Logan
Representative Patricio Ruiloba, D-Albuquerque
Representative Larry A. Scott, R-Hobbs
Representative James R.J. Strickler, R-Farmington
Representative James C. Townsend, R-Artesia
Representative Bob Wooley, R-Roswell
Will Governor Martinez Sign or Veto this Pop Culture Bill?
Will Susana Martinez, in her weakened state, side with the 28 Republicans and 1 Democrat who withstood popular (if intellectually vacuous) pressure, or will she side with both the House and Senate Republican leadership and the twenty Republicans who didn't even read the bill, but went with political correctness?
Our guess is she signs it. But she could surprise.
Email us (at nmpj@dfn.com) with your feedback, comments, questions and ideas.