Q Toon: If It Ducks Like a Quack

The town where I grew up recently joined eighteen states and several other municipalities in banning so-called conversion therapy on minors, the practice of using mental and physical torture to change a patient's sexual orientation, or at least to create an aversion to sex altogether.

A young person may still go to their house of worship and talk to the clergy about being conflicted about their sexual orientation, and the clergy may still recommend prayer, 159 Hail Maries, or joining the choir. The godman cannot, however, ship the kid off to Holy Clockwork Orange Ministries to razrez the gay out of him/her.

Rsponding to a Change.org petition, Amazon.com has now joined the crackdown, agreeing not to sell books authored by the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. This has deeply upset antigay conservatives, who issued a demand that Amazon resume stocking A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality and other works by the "Father of Conversion Therapy."

These same religiosity advocates only recently argued that if LGBTQ consumers are refused service at any commercial establishment, they can simply find a florist, caterer, photographer or plumber who won't turn away their business.

Nicolosi's books are still available at whatever Christian bookstore or Baptistzon.com cares to stock them, and there are other books advocating conversion quackery still on Amazon's shelves. Most of them do not have the blessing of Liberty University, but not all customers are looking for that kind of thing.

"Conversion therapy erotica"? Really??