President Barack Obama showed continued support for the LGBT community on Wednesday by pushing for a ban on “conversion” therapy that is supposed to change the sexual orientation of gay, lesbian and transgender youth.
In January, a petition popped up on the WhiteHouse.gov We The People page, asking that the president sign a law in response to Leelah Alcorn’s suicide in December. Alcorn was a 17-year-old transgender youth who posted a suicide note on Tumblr, explaining that her parents had forced her to go through “conversion” therapy and how that changed her life. The Ohio teen killed herself by jumping in front of a truck.
The petition received just over 120,900 signatures and also got a response from the administration that included a quote from Obama.
“Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let's say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he's held as long as he can remember. Soon, perhaps, he will decide it's time to let that secret out,” Obama said. “What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us -- on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.”
Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to the president, wrote in the statement that, “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this Administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.”
“It was tragic, but I will tell you, unfortunately, she has a lot of company,” Jarrett said of Alcorn in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s not the story of one young person. It is the story of countless young people who have been subjected to this.”
At the moment, “conversion” therapy is only banned in New Jersey and California, as well as in the District of Columbia. However, lawmakers in 18 other states did introduce bills to ban the practice.
Obama has already voiced support for gay marriage and he asked the Pentagon to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military.
A federal ban on “conversion” therapy would require an act from Congress.
image courtesy of Kristin Callahan/ACE/INFphoto.com