Doug Mastriano, Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, was Thursday's guest on conservative talk radio station 103.7 FM and spent a good portion of his segment talking about conversion therapy for LGBTQIA+ youths.
In response to the news that current Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Wolf, and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro are against the practice — which uses different methods to "cure" a person of sexual identities outside of heterosexuality — Mastriano made a passionate case to the contrary.
"This is disgusting to me, where bureaucrats and Tom Wolf — and Josh Shapiro — think it's okay to come in and threaten parents and therapists because their kids might be confused," Mastriano said to radio host Michele Jansen.
On August 16, Governor Wolf signed an executive order to protect the LGBTQIA+ community from state agencies who offer conversion therapy, but no part of that contained any such "threatening" of parents and therapists.
"Conversion therapy is a traumatic practice based on junk science that actively harms the people it supposedly seeks to treat," said Wolf on the order. "This discriminatory practice is widely rejected by medical and scientific professionals and has been proven to lead to worse mental health outcomes for LGBTQIA+ youth subjected to it. This is about keeping our children safe from bullying and extreme practices that harm them."
Josh Shapiro, who is ahead in the race for governor against Mastriano according to Huffington Post, echoes Wolf's views saying "As Governor, I'll pass nondiscrimination in Pennsylvania, ban conversion therapy practices for minors, and invest in mental health resources for youth . . . LGBTQ+ rights are human rights."
As State Representative, I fought to strengthen LGBTQ+ protections under law.
— Josh Shapiro (@JoshShapiroPA) May 12, 2022
As Commissioner, I married some of Pennsylvania's first LGBTQ+ couples.
As Attorney General, I've defended the rights of LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians time and time again.
Circling back to Gov. Wolf's newly signed order to crack down on conversion therapy, he highlights in it that "researchers found that when they accounted for the harms caused by conversion therapy – including negative mental health outcomes and substance use – conversion therapy costs our nation $9.23 billion each year."
