VA Bill to Ban Faith-Based Counselling Vote Coming Very Soon

ALERT:  (Jan. 23, 2020) — HB 386, the companion bill to SB 245 (described below) will be heard before the Health Professions Sub-Committee of the House Health, Welfare, and Institutions Committee TODAY at 5 p.m. Please call your Delegate on the subcommittee and urge them to vote “No.”

SB 245 , a bill that would prevent parents from seeking counselling for their children who may struggle with their sexual identity or experience unwanted same-sex attractions, passed a senate committee Thursday morning and will go to the senate floor for a vote any day now. Here is a bulletin with additional details from the Virginia Family Foundation. (Note that it was written prior to the committee vote Thursday.)

Please take a moment right now to call your Virginia senator and urge them to oppose SB 245. (Find your senator’s contact information here.) A vote could take place as early as Monday, January 20, so it’s vital that they hear from you today.

Traditionally, adolescents struggling through the many challenges of “becoming,” of sorting out who they are and will be as an adult, have turned to their parents for wisdom and guidance, and all the more when they face special struggles along the way. SB 245 would remove options from parents and their teens who may struggle with sexual feelings they do not want.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1979 that while adolescents often lack the capacity for judgment to make decisions regarding their physical or mental health care, “parents can and must make those judgments.” Parham v. J.R. (1979). SB 245 wants to do away with this important legal presumption that protects families.