Hi, my name is Tim Kurtz. I am one of the pastors at City of God Church in Lafayette, and I'm also the father of three young children. I have read through ordinance 31-21, many times now, and there are several reasons why I oppose it. However, however, for time sake, I just want to run through one line of reasoning for my opposition, which is this:

In your reasoning for this ordinance, you cite several publications and papers, as to the harmfulness or potential harmfulness of treatments like psychiatric technique, conversion therapy, cycle analytic technique, reparative therapy, et cetera, et cetera. However, from all of those reasonings and papers that you've cited, you then want to extrapolate on that to make ordinance 31-21 to ban any technique or any practice that would seek to reduce romantic attractions to individuals of the same gender - any practice. And you also want to ban any counseling which would seek to influence an individual to change their sexual attraction. Any practice, any counseling. I'm not sure why the papers and the studies that you cite would necessitate the banning of any practice or any counseling - those two don't seem to be the same thing.

To me, the potentially harmful and unhelpful treatments that you cite for this ordinance do not include every practice that might be used for counseling and guiding individuals to make wise life choices. You did not include any studies on helpfulness or effectiveness of biblical counseling, or pastoral counseling, or parental guidance. Your ordinance would outlaw all of these things. Pastoral counseling, biblical counseling, and parental guidance - that you have not provided any documentation as to their potential harmfulness or helpfulness for the purposes of helping questioning individuals to decide upon the best way to make their life choices.

If you truly want to help minors to be free to live their best life - and I believe that you do, and I know that we do as parents and as pastors - and if that's what you want, then why not allow them to seek out any and all counsel that they would choose to make their own informed decisions as to the wisdom and healthiness of their life choices?

Again, I strongly oppose ordinance 31-21, and I want you to oppose it as well. And I would stand in opposition to those whose support it. Thanks for your time.