I would echo Emmanuel's comments. In terms of the spirit of the bill and the intention behind it, I very strongly support it, but there are two main issues for me just about its lack of clarity.
One, again, is that, because there aren't any limiting terms, the scope is too broad. Proposed section 320.101 identifies conversion therapy as a “practice, treatment or service” and then anything “to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour”.
That last part, the sexual behaviour, would unnecessarily exclude anyone who is seeking sex and love addiction counselling services regardless. For example, for me, I'm not intending to seek to change my actual attractions. I'm not trying to become a straight individual. I'm simply trying to reduce harm in the way that I engage with that particular attraction, and that definition of harm does not come from a particular faith or religious community. It's from some folks that I have heard today who have alluded to it. It's just based on scientific study.
There are a lot of studies that are unbiased and not related to any kind of faith background or secular background. It's just a peer-reviewed study identifying that sex addiction is harmful regardless of the community: homosexual, heterosexual and anyone on the spectrum of gender identity. So, really, there's a lack of clarifying terms, such as “coercion”. And then also there's the language of reducing sexual behaviour and non-heterosexual sexual behaviour, which is not very clearly defined.
Other witnesses have said that the intent is not to exclude those helpful practices, but as it stands, just as I'm looking at the document, that's not very clear, so I think that should be amended.