WC Wisconsin News

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty sent La Crosse officials a letter saying that it's contemplating filing a lawsuit if the city continues with the ban on conversion therapy.

The letter argues that the ban “functions as little more than an official municipal prohibition on speech the city finds disagreeable,” WEAU.com reported. It also outlines how WILL believes the ordinance banning the controversial medical practice infringes on the First Amendment’s free speech clause, its religion clauses, and the Wisconsin Constitution’s freedom of conscience clauses.

“Case law on the First Amendment is clear that government has no authority to declare certain viewpoints out of bounds, and then punish those who disagree or who dare to voice those viewpoints,” WILL Deputy Counsel Anthony LoCoco told WEAU.com.

LoCoco later told EmpowerWisconsin.org, “La Crosse’s ordinance threatens parents, ministers, and counselors, among others, with punishment if they share sincerely-held views on issues of sex and gender with children in their care. It is black-letter law that the government has no right to simply penalize speech with which it disagrees. La Crosse needs to rethink its actions.”  

Earlier this summer, City Council members moved to pass an ordinance that made it “unlawful for any person to practice conversion therapy with anyone under 18 years of age.”

Ultimately, the proposal was brought back to the council when their legal team noticed some language that could put the city at risk. The ordinance lapsed after new wording could not be agreed upon within 60 days.