Ah, Stinkachusetts, normally when I check in on my favorite slice of the American Northeast, I’m amused and disappointed all at once. If it’s not arresting a Rabbi for selling organs, it’s the Governor signing an executive order that allows his travel expenses to be paid by foreign governments. Yes, the land that gave us Bruce Springsteen is truly a magical and absurd place all at once.

But, as the old saying that I just made up on the spot goes, in every pool full of aborted fetuses, one can occasionally find a diamond or something from the Disney Store, and, believe me my friends, that has been found in The Garden State during this lovely winter.

In a ruling on February 10^th, Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso Jr. declared that the practice of “Gay Conversion Therapy” is nothing more than blatant consumer fraud. The ruling is part of an ongoing case against Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH). In the case filed against the organization, the plaintiffs allege that they were subject to humiliating and absurd treatment that included beating effigies of their mothers and wrestling two oranges that represented testicles (Because of course.) away from another individual.

As I’m sure you were imagining the cost of this “exemplary” treatment is not cheap. If you want to beat an effigy of your mother with a tennis racket, the fine folks at JONAH will charge you 10,000 for a year of service. Man, that’s a drop in the bucket of the salary that my University pays our tool of a Football Coach.

Now, to be fair, I don’t have a problem if a consenting adult goes and seeks out this kind of thing. I mean, we don’t ban people from joining the American Nazi Party or engaging in weird sexual activities, so this sort of thing shouldn’t be off limits either, for adults that is, because when kids are forced to go to this by their parents, nothing good ends up coming from it, nothing good at all.

At 12 years old, Ryan Robertson told his parents in Washington that he was gay. In response, they sent him to weekly reparative sessions with his Pastor. Being forced to choose between Jesus and his sexuality, the teen ran away, got hooked on serious drug and ended up dying in the hospital at 20 years old.

More recently, the death of transgendered teen Leelah Alcorn made rounds across the internet. According to the young woman who was born as a man, her parents sent her to Christian therapists who were all very biased. As a result, she never got the proper treatment she needed to cure herself of her depression and she too ended up committing suicide.

Both these kids were nice people. Both of them had every right to live a nice and interesting life, but those rights were taken from them by frauds and religious zealots who were so against who these two Americans were at their very core. Yes, consenting adults have a right to seek this sort of thing out if they wish to. But for young kids, the practice should be banned dear reader. According to the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, LGBTQ children and teens have higher rates of suicide and suicidal thoughts than the national average. Congress needs to step up and stop the body count.