Last September, California took an essential step in the protection of LGBTQ youth when Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a ban on the practice of so-called conversion therapy in the state.

Identity does not require medical treatment (angelhphotography, Creative Commons)

“Conversion” therapy comprises the efforts of licensed psychotherapists to change the sexual orientations of queer minors. The ban, which is set to take effect Jan. 1, has encountered recent resistance from practicing conversion therapists, religious groups and parents who have placed their children in this type of therapy.

The resistant parties claim a violation to free speech, which Judge William B. Schubb ruled Monday was a legitimate enough grievance to grant exemptions to the law. This decision was countered by a ruling by Judge Kimberly J. Mueller, Schubb’s fellow judge in the Federal District Court in Sacramento, in a similar case the following day. Mueller found that claims that the law violates free speech would be unlikely to hold up in court and thus ruled that the law should not be blocked on this basis.

Of the two rulings, only Mueller’s reflects a legitimate legal and logical analysis. Schubb’s position lacks both and should not be permitted to drag down a law so crucial to protecting minors in the state of California.

Schubb determined that because conversion therapy is a practice primarily involving speech, banning it constitutes a denial of our First Amendment rights. But a person’s right to free speech ends where another’s right to equal protection under the law begins. While most forms of hate speech are inevitably permitted under the First Amendment, destructive action based on hate is not – it is called a hate crime and is punishable by law.

But if supporters of conversion therapy insist on playing with the law, here’s how an appropriate constitutional analysis should play out. In the American judicial system, infringements upon First Amendment rights are generally subject to the principle of strict scrutiny, which means the government has the burden to show a compelling state interest as justification for the infringement.

As it turns out, the state has a very compelling interest in outlawing conversion therapy: one, it’s an act of fraud, even if the perpetrator is as deceived as the victim; and two, it endangers youth.

Conversion therapy has been condemned as illegitimate by the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, among other major medical authorities. As early as 1997, the APA passed a resolution discrediting the practice and declaring that homosexuality is not a mental disorder, nor does it require any form of treatment whatsoever.

Several of these authorities have also recognized that conversion therapy is inherently harmful to those whom it attempts to treat.

Conversion therapy is based on a presumption that is fundamentally discriminatory and destructive — the idea that behavior contrary to a socially prescribed gender identity or sexual norm constitutes a mental problem and, according to most advocates of the practice, a grievous moral transgression.

Such a presumption reinforces the culture of intolerance and hate toward LGBTQ individuals, which most frequently manifests itself among youth in the form of bullying and hate crimes and results in suicidal depression. That parents should enjoy the right, as a function of free speech, to have medical professionals tell their children that their very identity is unwelcome, inappropriate and even evil is a disturbing injustice and flies in the face of medical standards of ethics. Mental health practitioners are supposed to help people develop a healthy perception and representation of themselves in their everyday lives, not coerce them into despising themselves.

Where exactly do these so-called medical professionals draw the line? If we’re going to condemn women dating other women, for example, should we not also condemn women for working outside of the home and violating other centuries-old sociocultural regulations? Maybe we should fire every woman with a job, send them home to clean and, while we’re at it, prohibit them from wearing pants or choosing a marriage partner. If any woman dare violate these standards of acceptable human behavior, let her be cast out as a lunatic and subject to years of psychological coaching to make her more submissive. Otherwise, we can just stone her to death.

Most Americans wouldn’t dream of imposing such sanctions on women today. We flinch when we hear tell of contemporary sexist regimes in other parts of the world, like the Taliban or cultures that practice female genital mutilation, but we allow the intolerant sexual norms heralded by these same regimes to dictate how the queer community is treated in our own country. What makes that any more OK?

Ultimately, nothing. Particularly in a nation that champions equality, LGBTQ individuals deserve to be treated justly and with respect. Youth deserve the chance to live their lives without being assaulted by crackpot science. Free speech should never be used to justify harm to another’s well-being, particularly a minor.

California’s conversion therapy ban should be allowed to go into effect unadulterated and without exemptions. State representatives should likewise lend their support to a resolution introduced by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) calling for the federal implementation of this ban.

There is no reason why a practice not only draconian, but dangerous, should continue to receive approval from any government body. Physicians have plenty of real medical problems to turn their attention to instead—without preaching a doctrine of intolerance that has fostered violence and demoralization nationwide.

Reach Deputy Opinion Editor Francesca Bessey here.