BOCA RATON, Fla. — A federal judge has ordered Palm Beach County and the City of Boca Raton to pay $175,000 to two family counselors who challenged a local ban on “conversion therapy” for minors struggling with their sexuality, gender identity and faith.
Robert Otto and Julie Hamilton ran afoul of Boca Raton’s ban on the practice, which considered it to be harmful to the health and emotional development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other youth. A district court upheld the law, but Otto and Hamilton appealed, backed by religious-liberty advocates at Liberty Counsel.
In 2020, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Otto and Hamilton. “We hold that the challenged ordinances violate the First Amendment because they are content-based regulations of speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny,” Judge Britt Grant wrote in the decision.
Otto will receive $50,000 from the county and another $50,000 from the city, according to the decision handed down last week by U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg. Hamilton will get $50,000 from the county and $25,000 from the city.
The difference between the awards has to do with the extent of each therapist’s practice in Boca Raton, said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal religious freedom advocacy group that represented the therapists.
Therapists follow a professional code of conduct that bars them from imposing their own religious views on their patients, and Staver said the patients set the goals — Otto and Hamilton direct clients away from homosexuality or gender dysphoria only if that’s what they want.
“Counselors that I represent already have ethical rules that they follow, that they do not impose their personal viewpoint on their client, regardless of whether the client is an adult or a minor,” he said.
Opponents of conversion therapy say it fails teenagers by directing them toward an “unattainable” outcome, according to an amicus brief filed in the case by the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The American Psychological Association also has weighed in against conversion therapy.
But the legal ruling prioritizes the First Amendment rights of the therapists and the clients who seek their services over the opinions of third-party groups, Staver said.
The judge will determine the amount due to Otto and Hamilton’s lawyers at a later date.
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