A religious liberty law firm is awaiting a federal appeals court ruling that affects its client, a licensed professional counselor who demands the First Amendment right to free speech for his clients, and for himself, in the privacy of a counseling session.
Oral argument took place Monday at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Liberty Counsel asked the court to reverse a judge’s decision that dismissed Liberty Counsel’s lawsuit and thus upheld Maryland’s counseling ban.
Gov. Larry Hogan signed SB 1028 in 2018, joining other states that have been convinced by homosexual, lesbian, and transgender activists that counseling people with unwanted same-sex attraction is harmful and should be prohibited.
Staver
Liberty Counsel is representing Christopher Doyle, who is himself a former homosexual and has become a hated figure for claiming he is not longer attracted to men and insists others can change, too.
Liberty Counsel attorney Mat Staver tells OneNewsNow that any counseling client, for any reason, has the right to “self-determination” when they sit down with a counselor. They should also have the right, he adds, to state the objective of the counseling session itself.
“And if their objective is to be affirmed,” Staver insists, “that’s permissible.”
Yet it is not legally permissible in Maryland and other states where LGBT activists have now won numerous legislative victories.
Staver points out the irony of those same far-left activists defending the right for transgender children to believe they are living in the wrong body, and need dangerous drugs and life-changing surgery, to make them happy.