California Tries To Coerce Religious Groups Into Supporting LGBT

The Blaze reports that California lawmakers have just passed a bill calling on all religious groups, including Christians to embrace the LGBT world view. Bill ACR-99 was passed in the California state senate on September 12th and called on all Californians to embrace this worldview, even if it violated their religious beliefs. The state is in effect trying to enforce lgbt friendly churches.

 

LGBT Conversion Therapy By Religious Groups

[T]he Legislature calls upon religious leaders to counsel on LGBTQ matters from a place of love, compassion, and knowledge of the psychological and other harms of conversion therapy,” the resolution states.

The resolution also blames “religious groups” for causing high rates of harm and isolation among the LGBTQ community.

“The stigma associated with being LGBTQ often created by groups in society, including therapists and religious groups, has caused disproportionately high rates of suicide, attempted suicide, depression, rejection, and isolation amongst LGBTQ and questioning individuals,” the resolution declares.

This bill falls just short of interfering with religious liberty but with the way California has been going the last few years, it wouldn’t take much for them to ramp it up. Religious groups certainly aren’t to blame for ‘harm and isolation’ of the LGBT communities, in fact it could be argued that in fact it is religious groups and people of faith who are being persecuted by the progressive agenda.

“We are treading into freedom of speech territory that I think should concern all of us,” warned Republican state Sen. Andreas Borgeas, who voted against ACR 99. “When an individual seeks therapy or guidance before a religious leader, whether it be a mosque, a temple, or a church, that’s a private setting…To disallow or create the pathway where we tell individuals they cannot say certain things should give us pause.”

“We believe in free speech. They have every right to criticize our position, but the state government does not have the right to use its power to coerce us to change,” California Family Council’s Director of Capital Engagement Greg Burt told The Epoch Times. “And that’s where we believe this resolution is heading.”

Despite the common pro-LGBT narrative that outside “stigma” is the primary driver of suicides, a wealth of lgbt statistics and data suggests otherwise. Research out of LGBT-friendly Sweden has found that homosexual and transgender residents remain more likely to attempt or commit suicide, despite having achieved the type of culture advocated by ACR 99.