SB 1172, the new law banning gay "conversion" therapy has been blocked. (Creative Commons/Flickr)

U.S. District Judge William Shubb ruled that the new law, SB 1172, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this year, is an unconstitutional infringement on speech, inhibiting the 1st Amendment rights of therapists who oppose homosexuality.

“There’s a good deal of uncertainty about how to apply the First Amendment to professional speech to clients and even more uncertainty in the case of minors,” said Eugene Volokh, a professor and constitutional expert at the UCLA law school. “It’s not clear how this is ultimately going to play out.” 

The judge signed a temporary injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing the ban, the first of its kind in the nation, against the three plaintiffs in the suit pending trial.

The three plaintiffs who had challenged the ban are a licensed marriage therapist and ordained minister, a psychiatrist and a former conversion therapy patient who is studying to practice the therapy on others.

The judge's decision was a setback for a law that has been hailed as a milestone by gay rights advocates and mainstream mental health groups.

Major mental health associations in California supported the ban on therapy aiming to alter the sexual orientation of youths, while the American Psychological Association and other leading professional societies say these efforts, also known as reparative therapy, have never been shown to work. (NYT)

When Brown signed the law, he said in a statement, "these practices have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery."

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