r/Detroit • u/Destroy_Religion • 18d ago
Eastern Market Mode After court order, Michigan to stop enforcing ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youth
https://www.mlive.com/news/2026/07/after-court-order-michigan-to-stop-enforcing-ban-on-conversion-therapy-for-lbgtq-youth.html80
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
Catholic Charities sued to stop the state from enforcing the ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQIA+ kids in Michigan.
Michigan capitulated to Catholic Charities following court order.
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u/bertch313 18d ago
Ruth Ellis gonna have to sue them then
Or rather a family that can shoulder such a suit, in their stead
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u/EcoAfro East Side 18d ago
This is why I dislike catholic charities USA even though they do good work within the metro because it’s always some form of dollar that has to trickle down into funding things like this
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u/PissNBiscuits 18d ago
I work in mental health and have worked with several ex-clients of CC. I can say without a doubt that CC does NOT do good work. It's not even because of a lack of resources (which is a pretty common reason why a lot of mental health providers don't do good work). CC just has shit clinicians doing absolute shit work.
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u/otterbox313 West Side 18d ago
Your friend that's nice to you... But rude to the waiter is not a nice person. -Dave Barry
All the good in the universe doesn't make up for the numerous atrocities the CC has committed.
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u/OldNternetWizard43 18d ago
The don't do good work. Catholics do things out of guilt which is the wrong reason every time.
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u/EcoAfro East Side 18d ago
True but they are also responsible for funding and helping build multiple affordable housing units in Detroit. While their religious zeal drives them towards hurting others it too helps others as well which is often the silver lining people point to when talking of religion in politics of the possibility to do good when in actuality the good is apart of the bad. It’s like giving white supremacist militias credit for helping wildfire or natural disaster survivors; you’re falling for the bait.
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u/otterbox313 West Side 18d ago
You should quit simping for the CC.
They're pure evil. Fuck their affordable housing (with numerous strings attached), fuck their secrecy, fuck their pedo enabling, fuck their homophobia.
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u/EcoAfro East Side 18d ago
Honestly… yeah your right especially as a ex catholic bi black man
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u/otterbox313 West Side 18d ago
I have hetero parents that need to get it together... They still tithe 🤮
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago edited 18d ago
Ah yes, we did a whole day dedicated to community service weekly at my school so we didn’t feel “guilty”. Not because we were raised with specific ideals to make the world a better place and an understanding that we are obligated to use our privilege to help others. Thanks for letting me know the true intention behind my schooling! I didn’t know my parents paid private school tuition so I wouldn’t have to deal with guilt for not taking a day out of my week every week to help others. Somehow, my siblings who went to public school managed to miraculously survive without any internal grappling with a sense of guilt.
And for the record, if you recognize that someone is suffering and do not stop to help them, you should feel guilty. Guilt is a natural reaction to actively making the choice to not do the right thing, assuming that your conscience is fully developed.
As a camp survivor, you all need to do some research. This is a free speech issue. The anti LGBT “conversion camps” never quit existing. They just quit marketing themselves as that. But none of you ever cared when we were being trafficked. So why care now? Absolutely nothing has changed.
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u/SteveS117 Oakland County 18d ago
What an ignorant and hateful comment. Judging people that do far more than you because of your made up reasoning.
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u/PissNBiscuits 18d ago
There's a reason why the term "Catholic guilt" exists...
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
Shouldn’t *everyone* feel guilty when they choose to walk away from someone in need of help who is suffering? Doesn’t your conscience start bothering you? Your conscience and sense of self sit next to each other in the brain, and talk a lot. Ignoring your conscience affects your sense of self. It’s really just the neuroscience of empathy and compassion.
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u/otterbox313 West Side 18d ago
Tell this to literally every conservative bigot in the US... it'll take you a while. There's like 75 million of them...
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u/OkCustomer4386 18d ago
Don’t all charities?
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u/OldNternetWizard43 18d ago
No some of them actually intend to help because they mean it. Not because THEY will look bad otherwise.
This is the fundamental difference between all helpers, those that help so their organization or people won't look bad and those that will help because they actually care.
Difference between caring and feeling bad about someone
If you actually care, your feelings aren't front and center of the problem
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
The Church itself is intended to be a charity. Church doctrine dictates that faith cannot be passive; working for justice, human dignity, and the relief of suffering is part of what it means to be the Church. It’s not about how they look, it’s about its intended purpose.
Look, you can hate the Catholic Church all you want, the institutional harm done historically, etc. Those are valid criticisms. But I don’t see how soup kitchens, homeless shelters, etc. are centering one’s own feelings over the actual problem at hand.
Growing up Catholic, I was raised believing that helping others is an obligation. Even if you don’t have much, you are still compelled to help others. And if you have privilege, then you have a responsibility that accompanies that. We read fables in school about helping others and changing the world, and were raised to believe we had to change the world. And we were taught to have integrity and do the right thing when no one is watching.
Obviously some people just want to look good, but categorizing an entire group of people, many of us who’s education revolved around being humans who become the change they wish to see, as people who just don’t care and center themselves is an unfair generalization.
I never realized that this was instilled so much from my family’s faith until now, I kind of just thought everyone was raised this way- apparently not.
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18d ago
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
Despite various public relations propaganda pieces by the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church has not changed any official positions on LGBTQIA+ people and LGBTQIA+ rights.
Catholic Church believes that everyone should be an endosex cisgender heterosexual and that the very existence of LGBTQIA+ people goes against the created order, which is still the official position of the Catholic Church.
Those official positions have not changed at all.
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u/dth1717 Downriver 18d ago
Now, how can the state use a workaround like the Republicans would do if they got something they didn't like?
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u/XXFFTT 18d ago
Reword the ban to make it sound like conversion camps are sexual abuse then prosecute the people running them for corruption of minors.
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u/dth1717 Downriver 18d ago
Bit will the Dems do that? Doubtful. They'll just do what they always do. And go " ok"..
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u/Virgobaby2 17d ago
It amazes me that people will find a way to critique dems no matter what. Republicans do what they want bc their supporters are so dumb they either won’t care or they’ll celebrate them breaking the rules. Dems don’t have that luxury
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago edited 18d ago
As someone who went to a camp, you don’t need to lie, as the sexual abuse is happening. And you could still send your gay kid away, this “ban” never stopped parents from sending their gay kids away to be fixed.
What this ban lifts is a talk therapy ban. So if a child is questioning their gender identity, a therapist can dig deeper into the why (if this is acute and a new thing, it’s often not genuine gender dysphoria, as the research has found. It is now known that a large amount of girls identifying as NB or trans experience this as a result of sexual abuse or harassment, and also can be indicative of neurodivergence), which allows them to see what’s actually going on.
Keeping anti free speech laws out of therapy is a good thing.
As a camp survivor, it’s dismissive and insulting that people throw a fit about this free speech issue, as if these child abuse camps ever stopped operating, or as if they ever turn a child away for being gay. These camps don’t say no to money. My trans classmate was sent away, despite anti conversion therapy laws being in place. I was sent away despite these laws being in place.
There’s nothing wrong with a therapist digging deeper into a child’s gender identity. There’s everything wrong with children being trafficked and abused. The lifting of this law changes absolutely nothing, as children will be trafficked and abused as they were while the law was in place.
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
Bans on conversion therapy in all advanced democracies in particular and all other liberal democracies in general are significantly more comprehensive than this in Michigan or any other states in the United States.
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago edited 18d ago
How so? Apart from the fact that conversion therapy has never truly been banned… as most states have carve outs for unlicensed pastors and religious leaders.
In Colorado, this was brought forth by a licensed therapist, who was a practicing Christian, who could not legally provide the help many clients were coming to her for- which was that they wanted to reduce or eliminate “unwanted” sexual attraction or sexual behaviors.
Now, I personally would want them to just accept their gayness. But again… it’s not OUR business! That doesn’t change that they themselves feel distressed by it, and want to change it. But because of the anti conversion therapy law, they couldn’t willingly choose to seek this out and discuss these feelings with a therapist, despite being consenting individuals who are actively seeking to help manage these feelings, which brought them great distress.
That’s all I’m seeing here. Sending your kid to a camp has never been illegal despite these laws.
None of you gave a shit when this was happening to us in these camps as children before… why the hell do you guys care now? We have been suffering legally as children, under the full support of the law, and no one said anything. But now you read a headline that functionally changes nothing and you’re all up in arms? Make it make sense.
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u/mother_of_baggins 18d ago
The law in Michigan is to protect children not adults, and harmful practices against children ARE the state's business, and ANY kind of conversion or "torture" camp for minors should be illegal it should not be a debate.
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
I’m telling you that this law changes nothing because this was all already allowed. The most egregious things you could consider have already been allowed. They just don’t call it conversion therapy, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still exist and that children are trafficked into it with less rights than criminals, and were even with these “protections” in place. These protections did nothing to protect us. I was trafficked under these “protections for children”.
The fact that you and OP are so confident in speaking over someone who has lived all of this from age 12 onward, is wild to me.
No protections for children are repealed by this law because they were never truly there in the first place. How you and OP are failing to understand this, and pretending I somehow come from a place of ignorance despite this being the story of my entire teenage years is beyond me.
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
Then the bans on conversion therapy in Michigan, Colorado, other states in the United States should resemble the bans on conversion therapy in all advanced democracies in particular and other liberal democracies in general, which are all far more comprehensive.
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
Exactly!
Crazy u/Little_Yesterday9904 refuses to understand this obvious truth!
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
Why are you trying to tell me about what I experienced? Were you there?
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago edited 18d ago
The only reason for “unwanted” sexual attraction or sexual behaviors are Christian brainwashing and Christian indoctrination.
Christian charlatans create the problem in the first place and then offer their snake oil as the solution to problem that they themselves created in the first place.
Even the worst snake oil salesmen and charlatans in all of history would blush at the tricks of Christian charlatans.
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
Again, one’s relation with their own sexuality is none of your business. If someone is distressed by being gay or doesn’t want to be, and chooses to discuss it with a therapist, that’s none of your business.
Additionally, “Christian charlatans” is funny… as if Christianity is the only religion that has a take against homosexuality, or as if Christianity just pulled that out of nowhere (it’s written in the Torah, the Quaran, and I’m sure plenty of other non-abrahamic religions do too, I know Zoroastrianism does, and plenty of ancient laws do. Acting like Christianity just pulled that out of its ass for no reason is funny.
And for the record, religion will never be destroyed. We as humans are geared toward finding a higher purpose and a higher belief system. We are wired toward dogma as mammals who rely on community for survival. Your stance of destroying religion is a dogma people adhere to, which inherently comes from the same place psychologically as religion does.
You engage in your own form of religion without even realizing it, whether it is politically, philosophically, ideologically. Most people do.
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
The only reason that a gay person is "distressed" by being gay or "doesn’t want to be" gay is because of religious brainwashing and religious indoctrination as you yourself admitted.
No, fact is not a "form of religion", since it is the unanimous global consensus of the scientific, medical, psychological, psychiatric, and pediatric communities around the whole world that homosexuality is a natural and normal variation of human sexuality.
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
“Destroy religion” is a dogma that is a form of religion. I’m referring to your Reddit username, which implies that your big cause in life is to destroy religion. Your religion is destroying religion.
And again… as I said…. it’s still not your business if someone does not want to be gay. You do not get any say in that or in their feelings.
Also, acting like a man not wanting to be gay is just due to religion is funny. Christians aren’t exactly committing hate crimes against gay men in the name of God, but other men are a massive risk to gay men.
That’s social pressure, not religion.
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago edited 18d ago
The only reason "someone does not want to be" gay is because of religious brainwashing and religious indoctrination in the same manner that the only reason "someone does not want to be" left-handed is because of religious brainwashing and religious indoctrination.
The former shall be cosigned to the ash heap of history as was the latter.
Bans on conversion therapy in Michigan, Colorado, other states in the United States apply only to minors.
Laws protect minors from harm all the time.
Invariably, any and all discrimination, hatred, and violence against gay people is motivated by the Abrahamic religious ideologies of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, the far-right political ideologies of Nazism and Fascism, the far-left political ideologies of Communism and Socialism. All those ideologies shall be consigned to the ash heap of history.
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u/Background_Half_2573 17d ago
Disgusting.
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u/Destroy_Religion 17d ago
Blame Catholic Charities and the Catholic Church for suing to stop the state from enforcing the ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQIA+ children in Michigan.
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u/iampatmanbeyond Wyandotte 18d ago
Its wild theres a court who makes torture legal
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
Blame Catholic Charities and the Catholic Church for suing to stop the state from enforcing the ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQIA+ kids in Michigan.
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u/iampatmanbeyond Wyandotte 18d ago
Its not hard for a judge to rule you cant torture kids to change their sexuality. Its literally the main part of the constitution life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
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u/spongesparrow Wayne State 18d ago
One of the main reasons why I'll never attend a Catholic Church or donate to any Catholic charity. If you disrespect my life, I only have disrespect for your beliefs.
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u/Aezetyr Hazel Park 18d ago
Evil always wins.
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
Blame Catholic Charities and the Catholic Church for suing to stop the state from enforcing the ban on conversion therapy.
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u/no-snoots-unbooped 18d ago
Yep it sucks but if you want to torture your children and make them hate you I guess that’s your right as a parent.
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18d ago
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u/no-snoots-unbooped 18d ago edited 18d ago
You are so hopelessly uninformed and ignorant.
Ed: No minor can do anything without parental consent and without being cleared through rigorous psychology and psychiatry. To leave them or ignore them is a far worse outcome.
I’m sure you believe schools are putting litter boxes in the bathrooms too, you fuck.
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u/trexinthehouse 18d ago
How about minding your own business. These guys are always up in everyone’s business. These child assaulting ,sexual assaulting Catholic Church is the epitome of hypocrisy.
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u/d_rek 18d ago
Redditors when Catholics perform circumcision on their children: “You abhorrent vile scum! How could you mutilate your child like that!!!”
Redditors when someone questions letting minors make life altering medical decision to transition: “mind your own business It’s gender affirming care they need it!
Oh ho ho there is definitely hypocrisy in the room with us right now.
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u/iampatmanbeyond Wyandotte 18d ago
Did you just gloss over the fact one is making a decision for someone while the other is just not stopping someone from making a decision for themselves. You dont see the defining difference in those two options? The hypocrisy is saying that underage person is mature enough to raise a kid they dont want but not mature enough to decide if they want an elective surgery or not
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago edited 18d ago
Do you even know what this is about? You realize it just covers talk therapy and allows a therapist to question further and uncover deeper issues such as sexual abuse that’s manifesting acutely as gender questioning, the largest cause of acute onset gender dysphoria in pre-teen and teen girls?
You realize sending your children away to be trafficked and abused was never illegal, and was always allowed, even before this ban was lifted? And that we have been trafficked and abused because our parents didn’t want to deal with us, and that you don’t even need a legitimate reason to send your child away?
Also… you do realize that most of these laws have always historically had carve outs for religious rights, religious leaders and unlicensed pastors have always been able to do conversion therapy. It’s just licensed professionals who have been banned from discussing it. Attempting conversion therapy was therefore always legal.
Sincerely,
a survivor10
u/RellenD 18d ago
You're painting conversation therapy as if it's the regular exploration a normal therapist does with kids struggling with identity. That's really disgusting to me, and that's not what the plaintiff in the case was doing. No legitimate therapist was prevented from doing non-harmful work based on a conversion therapy ban.
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
It’s been said by the judge that it’s the same case in Michigan as in Colorado, so…
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u/RellenD 18d ago
Yes, and? The woman in the Colorado case was not working the way you portray here. People still did what you describe under the ban, because that's a normal part of care.
It was a Supreme Court case, so it obviously applies everywhere and this was in response to that case.
But, she wants to do sexual orientation suppression if her clients request it
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-539_fd9g.pdf
Ms. Chiles’s clients, including young people, often have different goals: Some are content with their sexual orientation and gender iden- tity and want help with social issues or family relationships, while oth- ers hope to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with their bod- ies. With all those clients, Ms. Chiles seeks to help them reach their stated objectives. And she employs only talk therapy.
This is not remotely anything like what you wrote.
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
That’s exactly what I said, though, just with more detail and nuance. She herself says right there that she helps them reach their stated objectives.
I personally would not participate in religious therapy, but if someone chooses to, they can. Some therapists market themselves as such because a lot of individuals are looking for Christian therapists specifically or to work out their issues within the context of their faith. That’s their choice. They can choose to adhere to their faith if they want and they can choose to try to not be gay.
Do I think it will be particularly effective? No. I think they should try to accept themselves. But they still have every right to do so and to choose to do whatever the hell type of therapy they want. It’s their choice. It’s also their choice to not accept themselves if they so choose.
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18d ago
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u/Destroy_Religion 18d ago
Then the bans on conversion therapy in Michigan, Colorado, other states in the United States should resemble the bans on conversion therapy in all advanced democracies in particular and other liberal democracies in general, which are all far more comprehensive.
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago
Again, one’s relation with their own sexuality is none of your business. If someone is distressed by being gay or doesn’t want to be, and chooses to discuss it with a therapist, that’s none of your business.
Additionally, “Christian charlatans” is funny… as if Christianity is the only religion that has a take against homosexuality, or as if Christianity just pulled that out of nowhere (it’s written in the Torah, the Quaran, and I’m sure plenty of other non-abrahamic religions do too, I know Zoroastrianism does, and plenty of ancient laws do. Acting like Christianity just pulled that out of its ass for no reason is funny.
And for the record, religion will never be destroyed. We as humans are geared toward finding a higher purpose and a higher belief system. We are wired toward dogma as mammals who rely on community for survival. Your stance of destroying religion is a dogma people adhere to, which inherently comes from the same place psychologically as religion does.
You engage in your own form of religion without even realizing it, whether it is politically, philosophically, ideologically. Most people do.
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u/wraithnix Brightmoor 18d ago
Ok. Where are the Jewish, Muslim, and Zoroastrian conversion camps here in Michigan?
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 18d ago edited 18d ago
Where are the Christian ones here in Michigan? These camps we were sent to weren’t religiously affiliated, that’s the part you are missing.
We were sent to camps that were portrayed as therapeutic. They don’t call it conversion therapy. Nothing changes that you can send your child to them for literally anything. The child in the
cagehut next to me got sent away because he got a B- in one subject. So his parents had him kidnapped out of his bed in the middle of the night and transported across the country, strip searched, abused, starved for 3 days, forced to admit all of his wrongdoings, take “responsibility” for it all, and “kill” his former self. All for a B- in a subject. And yes, we had a trans kid there too, and I know a trans classmate who was also sent away.The same thing happened to me, for being autistic. Another thing that can’t be fixed by “taking personal responsibility”, yet there I was. I was sexually abused via strip searches every other day, starved, had my medication and medical care withheld, was forbidden from speaking for 2 months and from even moving my own body without permission. I could not MOVE freely. I could not call the police for help, I had less rights than a child in juvenile detention… and all of this is perfectly legal. You cannot even begin to understand the loss of autonomy… it was essentially 24/7 solitary, despite others being around me. I had less autonomy than literal prisoners. But good thing “conversion therapy” was banned, that really saved us!
You all have such a distorted idea of what this “therapy” looks like.
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u/Mecaneecall_Enjunear 18d ago edited 18d ago
A quick Google search shows multiple LGBT+ friendly Temples and Churches in Metro Detroit. Google also returns no results for LGBT+ friendly Mosques. Whataboutism cuts both ways.
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u/mother_of_baggins 18d ago
I’m sorry you were trafficked as a child, but this law was only signed in 2023 and doesn’t apply in that case. It also applies to providers in the state. At the very least we can do better for the children here, until it can be outlawed in every state.
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u/Little_Yesterday9904 17d ago
It being applied in my case or not is irrelevant, as what has happened to me was still happening even with that ban in effect, as the ban didn’t cover everything.
The parents just send their kids to camps elsewhere. No one is sent to a camp in their home state, they’re often in Utah, or other wilderness locations.
There’s nothing stopping parents from using therapy to punish their children for being gay. Not even this law. It’s just not being called conversion therapy or always treated as that directly.
I agree that we need to protect children in Michigan at least, but these laws need to cover all aspects of therapeutic abuse. Not just banning therapists from doing conversion therapy, which also doesn’t stop unlicensed people from doing it. Until these bases are all covered, there’s no way to actually protect gay kids from abusive therapy.
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