Yesterday TPM Reader AM flagged to us that the New Jersey legislature is considering a bill to ban so-called “gay conversion therapy.” Of course, if it is passed, it would need the signature of Gov. Chris Christie. If he signs it, it’s probably another nail in the coffin of any national political ambitions in the GOP. If he vetoes it, he probably damages his increasingly potent cross-party appeal going into this fall’s election campaign.
At first I thought the law only applied to minors. But now it’s not clear to me that that’s the case. California is the only other state with such a law on the books. And that one is now caught up in legal challenges.
Here’s the Star-Ledger’s run-down of Christie’s response at a news conference today …
“I’m of two minds just on this stuff in general,” he said at a news conference at Stone Harbor Elementary School. “Number one, I think there should be lots of deference given to parents on raising their children. I don’t — this is a general philosophy, not to his bill — generally philosophically, on bills that restrict parents ability to make decisions on how to care for their children, I’m generally a skeptic of those bills. Now, there can always be exceptions to those rules and this bill may be one of them.”
