The City of Tampa, FL, now has 950,000 reasons not to discriminate against Christians, thanks to a successful lawsuit by Liberty Counsel. But 87 other communities continue to violate the Constitution by banning counseling that has saved many lives.

Read on to learn what we are doing to keep Christian mental health counseling LEGAL and available to fight the growing push to destroy our children. — Mat

Please, help us fight to free Christian counseling and have YOUR IMPACT DOUBLED by the VICTORY in 2023 CHALLENGE GRANT!

Help Liberty Counsel STOP the bans on Christian Counseling!

The City of Tampa had to write a big check this week — 950,000 dollars — for unlawfully banning Christians from receiving and Christian counselors from providing counsel for gender confusion and unwanted same-sex attractions.

In Vazzo v. City of Tampa, Liberty Counsel represents marriage and family therapist Robert Vazzo and his minor clients, as well as the Christian ministry New Hearts Outreach Tampa Bay.

The Court of Appeals ruled the Tampa ordinance that prohibited licensed counselors from providing voluntary talk therapy to minors seeking help to reduce or eliminate their unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or identity is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

This ruling is based on Liberty Counsel’s earlier victory in Otto v. City of Boca Raton in which the Eleventh Circuit also ruled that similar bans preventing counselors from helping their clients in Palm Beach County and the City of Boca Raton were unconstitutional viewpoint restrictions on speech under the First Amendment.

Counselors and clients now have the freedom to choose the counsel of their choice and be free of political censorship from government-mandated speech because of these victories. The government has no business eavesdropping inside private counseling rooms, and the city has no authority to enact a local counseling regulation. Any city that tries to enact such a ban will face the same consequences.

Who is opposing Christian counseling and religious freedom? Planned Parenthood, of course.

In the six months following the demise of Roe v. Wade (which we helped foster with our powerful amicus brief cited in the Dobbs case), there were 32,260 few abortions performed across America. According to the Society of Family Planning, there have been an average of 5,300 fewer abortions every month since Roe was overturned.

The reduction in abortions is putting a dent in Planned Parenthood’s budget, so its infamous abortion factories are turning to another profit center that continues founder Margaret Sanger’s eugenic, population-reduction goals.

No longer able to butcher babies at will, Planned Parenthood now seeks to continue its eugenic agenda by sterilizing potential parents via “transgender therapy.”

Last year, Meg Mikolaiczyk, deputy director and legal counsel for Planned Parenthood of the North Central States, argued for a ban on Christian change counseling, calling the practice “hateful, unscientific, and dangerous.” Instead, Mikolaiczyk and her baby-murdering ilk would want only ONE option for people suffering from body dysphoria — gender “transitioning” therapy.

In reality, the only “hateful, unscientific, and dangerous” practices are so-called “therapies” coming from Planned Parenthood and the trans-pushers.

A brief appointment with a Planned Parenthood clinician is all that is needed to begin cross-sex hormone treatment. According to patients, Planned Parenthood’s “transgender services” only performs the bare minimum of health assessments. Blood tests are not performed, nor are blood endocrine levels monitored. This can lead to physical disaster.

Olivia* learned this the hard way. “The only potential side effects of T [testosterone] I was warned about were high blood pressure and high cholesterol.” Those omissions nearly cost Olivia her life.

The testosterone began destroying Olivia’s liver, causing the vital organ to swell and harden as the foreign hormone pushed her to the brink of fatal cirrhosis. This side effect of testosterone is well known — yet Olivia was never informed.

Elizabeth* nearly died from her experiment with testosterone. “I had horrible side effects from HRT [hormone replacement therapy],” including hair loss and high blood pressure,” Elizabeth said. “I felt like I was on cocaine all the time, angry, couldn't sleep, aggressive. I started feeling so bad, like I was on drugs and on speed.”

But then Elizabeth’s body flipped on her. Where once she felt like she was on “speed,” next her body simply began to shut down. The testosterone had debilitated Elizabeth’s adrenal glands. “I was dying from too low cortisol,” Elizabeth says. “I was going into a coma.”

The testosterone also ruined Elizabeth’s digestive system, deteriorating her intestines to the point that they could no longer properly absorb nutrients. “I went months not being able to get out of bed, and had to leave college,” says Elizabeth, who must also remain on steroids for an unknown amount of time … all because the trans-pushers refused to tell her the very real physical consequences she would suffer from cross-sex hormone “therapy.”

The dangers of cross-sex hormone therapies are well known. According to multiple peer-reviewed, scientific studies, cross-sex hormone therapy has been proven to cause ovarian, breast, and womb cancer, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, dangerous blood clots and cardiovascular disease.

Yet neither Olivia nor Elizabeth was warned of these documented dangers.

The testosterone poisoning was a wakeup call for both women, who have now “detransitioned” to living as the females God ordained them to be. But neither woman knows for sure if she will ever fully recover her health.

Planned Parenthood was never in the “reproductive health” business. It is dedicated to the evil of its founder, Margaret Sanger, and her eugenic agenda to rid the world of “undesirable” people by murdering their children in the womb and sterilizing the parents.

The LGBTQ mafia and the eugenicists at Planned Parenthood hate Christian change counseling because it works.

Still, 87 cities and states around the country continue to ban Christian mental health counseling for body dysphoria, transgenderism, and unwanted same-sex desires that could have helped Olivia and Elizabeth avoid the cross-sex hormone treatment that nearly killed them.

NO government should EVER be able to tell people they cannot seek counseling that aligns with their religious beliefs.

Nor should any government condemn its citizens to a lifetime of misery and deception. Although we had a great victory in the Otto and Vazzo cases, we have many more challenges to bring. And we need to get one of these cases to the Supreme Court to strike down all such counseling bans.

We need YOUR HELP to keep fighting for America’s children in courtrooms across America. Please contribute to our legal fund today, and have YOUR IMPACT DOUBLED by a generous Challenge Grant.

Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel

Sources:

“#WeCount Report April 2022 to December 2022.” Society of Family Planning, April 11, 2023. Societyfp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/WeCountReport_April2023Release.pdf.

“Does Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) Increase the Risk of Cancer?” Cancer Research UK, March 27, 2023. Cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/hormones-and-cancer/does-hormone-replacement-therapy-increase-cancer-risk.

“IBS and Hormone Replacement Therapy.” GI Society. Canadian Society of Intestinal Research, Accessed May 3, 2023. Badgut.org/information-centre/a-z-digestive-topics/ibs-and-hormone-replacement-therapy/.

“Lincoln Conversion Therapy Ban | Planned Parenthood Testimony.” Planned Parenthood Advocates of Nebraska, February 8, 2021. Plannedparenthoodaction.org/planned-parenthood-advocates-nebraska/blog/ppan-testimony-lincoln-conversion-therapy-ban.

“Testosterone therapy in women: Does it boost sex drive?” Mayo Clinic. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, April 22, 2023. Mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/menopause/expert-answers/testosterone-therapy/faq-20057935.

Today_Either. “My Story and Testosterone Damage on Healthy Body. Life and Health Destroyed, Almost Died.” Reddit, 2021. Reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/otougc/my_story_and_testosterone_damage_on_healthy_body/.

Wandersee, Katherine. “High Testosterone Levels Linked to Risk of NAFLD in Women.” EndocrineWeb for Healthcare Professionals. Remedy Health Media, December 6, 2019. Pro.endocrineweb.com/testosterone/high-testosterone-levels-linked-nafld-younger-women.