Can’t we just pray away Mike Pence?

I read recently that Pittsburgh (Pa.) City Council voted unanimously to ban “conversion therapy” for minors under the age of 18, making it the first city in Pennsylvania to do so.

I found that ironic, since Pennsylvania was supposed to be part of the “blue firewall” that made Hillary Clinton the next president but voted instead for Donald Trump and his “pray away the gay” running mate Mike Pence, who supports efforts to change gays into straights.

What conversion therapy does is allow fanatical Christian do-gooders with no proper education or training to trample around in other people’s brains trying to “convert” their victims from what they were meant to be naturally into something they are not and never will be. Stopping this horrific practice is going to be much tougher now with Mike Pence running the country while Donald Trump holds rallies and plays golf, but Pittsburgh seems to be on the right track.

A little background:

Conversion therapy, also called “reparative” therapy, is the practice of trying to turn gay people straight or to make transgenders into gender conformists. Every major medical and mental health organization in the United States condemns the use of conversion therapy, and it is illegal in several states.

Vice President-elect Pence, when he was running for Congress in 2000, declared that money set aside to help indigent AIDS patients also be directed toward “those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”

During his term as governor of Indiana he became nationally known for signing bills that legalized discrimination against the LGBTQ community. When asked to defend his action, he couldn’t do it, and he eventually backed off after the state had lost millions of dollars’ worth of commerce.

(A New York state legislator recently introduced a bill banning conversion therapy and named it the Prevention of Emotional Neglect and Childhood Endangerment – or PENCE for short.)

Pence comes from a line of religious zealots like former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her husband, who operate a clinic where they attempt to “pray away the gay,” although they admit they often resort to “less gentle” techniques. More draconian activities have, in the past, included ice-pick lobotomies, chemical castration, electric shock and the use of nausea-inducing drugs.

Psychologists say the therapy is ineffective, unethical and often harmful – exacerbating anxiety and self-hatred among those being “treated” – and point out that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. Minors are especially vulnerable, with conversion therapy often leading to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness and suicide.

Following is a first-hand account of conversion therapy from a former 15-year-old patient:

“The first step – which usually lasted six months – is where they ‘deconstruct us as a person.’ Their tactics still haunt me. Aversion therapy, shock therapy, harassment and occasional physical abuse. Their goal was to get us to hate ourselves for being LGBTQ….

"The second step of the program, they ‘rebuilt us in their image.’ They removed us of everything that made us a unique person, and instead made us a walking, talking, robot for Jesus. They retaught us everything we knew. How to eat, talk, walk, dress, believe, even breathe. We were no longer people at the end of the program.”

No longer people at the end of the program. Robots for Jesus. Candidates for suicide. Pray away the gay.

Are you kidding me? Can’t we just pray away Mike Pence instead?