A licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Washington state is challenging a law that limits the free speech of both him and his clients and effectively legalizes child abuse. Brian Tingley recently appealed his case after a district court threw out his challenge in favor of government-imposed, anti-family restrictions on speech.
SB 5722 – first adopted in 2018 while I was in the state senate (I voted NO) – prohibits any conversation between a counselor and minor client with the goal of “changing” or modifying that minor’s gender “identity” or sexual behaviors away from a gay sexual activity towards abstinence or heterosexual sexual activities and desires. So any counselor is prohibited from encouraging a sexually confused youth to remain abstinent or sexually chaste. Even worse, the sponsors of the bill ALLOW counselors to push heterosexuals towards homosexual activity and gender confusion and away from abstinence or heterosexual activity.
Not only does this anti-scientific law ban professionals from stating facts and data in private conversations free from government interference, it also prevents counselors in Washington from helping to protect young people from the dangerous libertine, pornographic, homosexual and delusional gender trends pervasive in today’s society. Our children are being inundated and harmed with this dangerous and perverse LGBT propaganda that is pornographic in the extreme at schools and the entertainment industry. Licensed professionals have the right to help families navigate through these dark challenges. They should not be banned from doing this.
Brian Tingley is a Marriage and Family Therapist in Tacoma, Washington, and works with adults, couples, and children on a variety of topics from “gender identity” struggles to depression to marriage counseling and more. His practice employs techniques that are no different than those used by any other counselor: he listens to clients, supports them in their goals, and offers advice based on his training and knowledge.
However, many of Brian’s clients are referred to him by local churches, leading to a shared faith and belief system between him and many of his clients. This should be encouraged and applauded – Brian is able to understand his clients’ perspectives, offering advice and counsel from a mutual space. Instead, the neopagan state legislature in Washington views scenarios such as this as a threat, and instead has chosen to adopt a law that prohibits and even penalizes people like Brian from engaging in private business practice and conversation that the government doesn’t agree with.
The law specifically prevents conversations between counselors and clients who desire to become comfortable with their biological sex and are attempting to change certain sexual behaviors or practices. This includes clients who seek out counselors like Brian because their goal is to become realigned with their faith and have their actions and desires match the teachings of that faith.
If counselors choose to defy this law and have such important conversations anyway – as they should be able to do in a free society, without the interference of radical anti-Christian lawmakers – they face fines of up to $5,000 per violation, a suspension of their counseling license, and even risk losing their license altogether. That these conversations are barred, particularly with children who usually “grow out” of gender dysphoria once they reach puberty while cross-sex hormones and permanent, irreversible mutilation surgeries are pushed is absolutely unscientific, undermines actual healthcare, and is child abuse – plain and simple.
Aside from the fact that individuals are being denied rational scientific help that accepts God’s, and nature’s design for their bodies, this law explicitly targets Christian counselors. This is bigotry. Good counselors treat all clients equally regardless of whether they share that faith, and this Washington state law singles out Christian counselors who may encourage positions contrary to those of the neopagan sexually pornographic government.
Despite these attempts to limit faith-based counseling and force individuals, especially young people, toward a pagan lifestyle that ignores Christian faith and biological reality, people like Brian Tingley have continued to fight for their clients’ rights to have private conversations with therapists that pursue personal goals free from government intervention or influence.
In recent years, the courts have signaled that this law is a violation of our constitution and common-sense treatment. This law is the essence of Orwellian “thoughtcrime” and we should all be alarmed about this radical movement that legalizes child abuse. Anyone who enforces this denial of care for children or promotes this child mutilation should be treated as any other child abuser who harms children in our state: stigmatization and jail.
