MIDVALE, Utah — The city council in this suburb of Salt Lake City has passed a resolution calling on Utah’s legislature to implement a ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy.
In a unanimous vote, the Midvale City Council approved the resolution. It calls on state lawmakers to pass a ban statewide, said Councilman Dustin Gettel.
“It’s clear our legislature is broken on this issue. We expected the conversion therapy ban to sail through the last legislative session until it got hijacked at the last moment. I think cities now, like other issues that have happened throughout the county in the past few years, now cities are going to put some more pressure on the legislature to say this is what we would like to see happen,” he told FOX 13 on Wednesday.
The Salt Lake County Council recently passed a similar resolution and other communities are considering doing the same, Gettel said.
Conversion therapy is a widely discredited practice that tries to force someone to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Utah State Legislature failed to pass a bill earlier this year after more conservative members made changes to it.
Recently, Governor Gary Herbert went around the legislature by issuing a directive to the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing’s Psychologist Licensing Board. He instructed them to craft rules to regulate the practice of conversion therapy.
