The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Editorial: What took so long?
Banning conversion therapy for gay minors in Colorado – what took so long?
This is the fifth consecutive year that backers of a ban tried to pass it. But the Republican-controlled Senate always stood in the way. With Democrats capturing a Senate majority in the 2018 election, the legislation finally had a real chance this session.
It should have passed sooner for the simple reason that conversion therapy doesn’t work and it often inflicts long-term damage. Once the American Psychiatric Association stopped classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973, gay conversion therapies were readily reduced to psuedo-science. Mainstream psychologists say the therapy is ineffective, unethical and often harmful, stoking anxiety and self-hatred among those treated to overcome same-sex attraction.

