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Associated Press

The state Senate has approved what supporters say would be the nation's first ban on a form of psychotherapy aimed at making gay people straight.

The bill would prohibit what is known as reparative therapy for minors. It also would require adults to sign a release form stating that the counseling is ineffective.

Democratic Sen. Ted Lieu of Torrance says he is seeking the ban, saying the so-called conversion therapy is dangerous. He says it has led some people to attempt suicide.

The state Senate voted Wednesday to prohibit psychotherapists in California from using a kind of therapy aimed at trying to "convert" minors from being gay to heterosexual.

State Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said the therapy is based on "junk science" that has been discredited by many in the medical community. "It’s not just that people are wasting their time and money on these therapies that don’t work," Lieu said. "These therapies are dangerous."

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Former Republican presidential frontrunner Michele Bachmann and her husband run a fundamentalist clinic that attempts to make gays heterosexual through prayer. It's one of many such evangelical therapy operations around America.

But the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association both say such treatment is worthless: It can't change the intrinsic nature of homosexuals, and can harm people by instilling a sense of failure and depression, even sometimes leading to suicide.

"Given CA's $16B deficit, what is policy rationale for locking in tobacco tax revenue for research, rather than other priorities?"
SEN. TED LIEU, D-Torrance, commenting Tuesday via Twitter on Proposition 29, the tobacco tax proposal on next week's ballot

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/30/4524353/the-buzz-dan-schnur-jon-fleischman.html#storylink=cpy