By Kate Quiñones June 13, 2025 Catholic News Agency
When Ken Williams was 17 years old, he struggled with suicidal ideation because he was torn — he was a Christian, but he also had same-sex attraction.
“My faith convictions were that God wanted me to live a life not including those letters [LGBTQ],” he said at a press conference on Thursday where he and many others shared their testimonies on the steps of the California state capitol.
When his church and family helped connect him with a Christian psychologist, Williams started his path to healing. He went on to meet with the counselor weekly for five years.
“I was never suicidal after that,” he said. “I got to know God as the one who forgives and has grace for my struggles.”
Williams gathered together with others at the rally to oppose legislation regulating counseling and therapy for youth who struggle with same-sex attraction — a hot-button issue that is currently being deliberated by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Through his relationship with God — and with the support of a good counselor — Williams recovered from the LGBTQ lifestyle after more than a decade of wrestling with same-sex attraction.
“I moved on years later, quite a few years later, fell in love with this beautiful girl,” he said. “We’ve been married for almost 19 years. I have four children — it’s incredible what God has done in my life.”
Williams went on to co-found a ministry known as the Changed Movement, an international community of people who no longer identify as LGBTQ and have been changed through their relationship with Christ.
But under recent legislation that has been pushed in California and other states, Williams’ therapist could have been committing a crime by encouraging him to follow not his sexual desires but his faith …
Jennifer Roback Morse, a Catholic economist and founder of the interfaith pro-family coalition the Ruth Institute, said “counseling freedom” is fundamental because “we’re affirming a truth about what it means to be human in the first place.”
“When you have a thought or a feeling, you have a choice about what meaning to assign that feeling,” Morse said. “You have a choice about what behavior to engage in, and you have a choice about how to understand yourself and what label you do or do not pin upon yourself.”
These laws can limit what therapists can say during therapy, requiring therapists to affirm LGBTQ inclinations or transgender ideology, even if the patient does not want that.
Counseling bans are currently before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Chiles v. Salazar, a landmark case that could make bans on so-called conversion therapy unconstitutional.
