***There is a bill currently in the Iowa legislature stuck in the Senate Local Government Committee. The bill would prohibit cities and counties from banning such talk therapy like what is described below. Senate File 2037 needs support from Republicans in order to pass.***
Imagine being chained in a personal prison of unbearable despair. Someone you know has the keys to set you free, but the government has forbidden them from helping you.
That’s the situation many “gender-confused” children and adults are facing, thanks to 87 bans on Christian counseling across the nation.
Ken Williams knows the trauma all too well. Ken says he was the “scrawniest” kid in every class from kindergarten through high school.
Bigger boys on the playground made fun of Ken’s small size, calling him “faggot” and “homo.” Ken soon learned to stay away from any situation that might lead him to be alone with the other boys. “I distanced myself from most boys—definitely the rough and tumble ones—and canceled the masculinity around me as best as I could.”
At 8 years old, Ken was exposed to “gay p*rn” and sexually molested.
“I was desperately confused by the experiences and, from there, lived with overwhelming shame that I kept hidden for the next ten years,” Ken says.
“But my need for masculine connection grew stronger, the more I pushed it away,” Ken says. “While I rejected the brash, masculine stereotypical guy, I actively sought out whichever male peer I deemed to be strong who was also kind. If he showed me attention or affirmation, I felt valuable. If I could have his undivided attention, I was okay for the minute.”
“By middle school, I was experiencing same-sex attraction, which caused me to hate myself all the more because I didn’t want to have those desires. I developed one unhealthy friendship after the next through my teens, trying to find myself in each young man.” It was “[c]odependency, plain and simple,” Ken says. “But no matter how much time or attention I received from a guy, it never was enough, even in the times it turned sexual. My ‘friend’ would head home for the evening, and I was lost again. Obsessed. Depressed.”
By the time he was 17, Ken felt so helpless he began planning suicide. “I just couldn’t imagine fighting the same-sex desires my whole life or bearing the weight of the loneliness and self-hatred I felt on a daily basis.”
Scared that he would actually go through with his plan, Ken finally confessed to his parents and asked them to take him to a Christian counselor.
“Those five years of counseling saved my life because it gave me encouragement and a totally confidential space to share everything,” Ken says. “All the shame over sexual encounters, pent up anger from being bullied, feelings of inadequacy, codependent fixations, and loneliness.”
Ken’s counselor encouraged him to join a support group, and for the first time Ken realized he was not alone. “The group pointed me to books, which I devoured, containing examples of people whose sexual feelings had changed over time. The books also helped me discover underlying issues contributing to my sexual identity confusion,” Ken says.
“I then attended a ministry school and my addictions to pornography and masturbation, as well as my bent toward codependent fixation, dramatically waned. There, I began to experience God as … a kind Father who could be trusted. These were attributes of God I’d not known before.”
In time, Ken says he was no longer sexually aroused by men anymore. He met a lovely young woman at church where he found himself “captivated by the sight and thought of her.” The couple married in 2006.
“My wife is my closest and most treasured companion… Today, I have peace. I’m blessed with plenty of friends, and I feel known and valued by even the men in my community. I enjoy my life. None of that was true before.”
Ken’s story is remarkable, but not unique. I’ve had the honor of getting to know many young men and women whose lives have literally been saved by Christian counseling. And that’s why Liberty Counsel is fighting so hard to overturn every unlawful ban on this special practice.
Our court cases have overturned 23 bans in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. However, more than 87 bans still exist around the country. Liberty Counsel will be filing lawsuits in three more states. Our work in defeating these lawsuits isn’t simply setting the captives free — we are saving lives.
Even Congress is trying to ban Christian change counseling!
HR 15 — the so-called “Equality Act” specifically denigrates Christian change counseling. With 212 House co-sponsors, this legislation only needs six Republicans to pass this bill. Those six votes might not be hard to capture if you and I don’t act NOW.
Fax Congress NOW to demand they VOTE NO on the Equality Act.
