'Ex-Gay' Therapist Praises Tennessee's 'Turn Away the Gays' Counseling Law

Tennessee's highly criticized and recently adopted law allowing therapists to turn away LGBT clients due to their religious beliefs is receiving unsurprising support from a noted activist and therapist who is in the business of attempting to "turn" gays and lesbians straight.

Christopher Doyle, the brains behind the 2013 "Ex-Gay Pride" event that promised thousands of participants but failed to deliver a dozen, praised Tennessee Governor Bill Halsam for signing SB 1556, the bill allowing counsellors to turn away gay patients who may offend their religious sensibilities.

"SB 1556 corrected a bad policy that was forced upon Tennessee counselors that would hurt both therapists and clients alike. It has been a longstanding principle of counseling ethics that if a therapist is unable to affirm or advocate for a client's goals, he/she should refer to another therapist who can," Doyle said in a statement released by Equality and Justice for All - one of the many conservative "ex-gay"-focused organizations that bear his name on their letterhead. "

Doyle went on to decry the American Counseling Association's very vocal opposition to the measure that they call a breach of professional ethics.

"But the liberal ACA would rather impose a political agenda upon counselors than do what's best for clients and therapists," Doyle continued. "If a counselor cannot affirm a client's goal, whatever that may be, it is their ethical duty to refer. It is not the ACA's authority to insist that counselors change their religious values or worldview to accommodate a non-licensing trade organization's liberal position."

True to form, Doyle, a self-purported "ex-gay" himself, blasted LGBT organizations opposed to the "right to discriminate" law, claiming it was politically motivated.

"LGBT activists should be thanking the Tennessee Legislature and Governor, instead they are making false claims and threats that discrimination will occur because of the law. It is more evidence that for gay activists, the facts do not really matter when it comes to therapy equality and conscience rights."

Doyle, a reparative therapy practitioner, has been busy in recent months plugging his #TherapyEquality movement that aims to prevent states from enacting laws to ban the practice of gay conversion therapy on minors.

Four states plus Washington, D.C. and the city of Cincinnati, Ohio ban the practice of gay conversion therapy on minors.