LoveLure's Luke and Reid Blog

It’s hard to believe it’s been around 10 years since Damian convinced Lily to send Luke off to the creepy conversion camp. Thankfully progress continues to be made to protect today’s LGBT youth:

In the past ten years, the insistence that one can, by sheer force of spiritual will, change one’s sexual orientation has fallen by the wayside of bad ideas. Medical associations condemned it. States banned it. In 2013, the largest religious organization advocating “gay conversion therapy” shuttered, with its founders, who were themselves gay men, apologizing for the damage they’d wrought.

…Under the provisions of a bill filed Wednesday by state Representative Tracy McCreery (D-Olivette), therapists would risk losing their state-issued licenses if they engage in “any form of conversion therapy of a minor.”…If the bill passes, Missouri would become the tenth state to prohibit licensed therapists from attempting to “cure” young people by turning them straight. Illinois passed its own ban in 2015.

All right, Oakdalians, who remembers creepy Dr. Kreeger and how Damian managed to convince Lily that his camp was a place for “confused” teens? Who would like to forget Dr. Kreeger? Who wishes Dr. Kreeger and his ilk would take a long walk off a short pier?

Well, the Dr. Kreegers of the world may not be shriveling up, but the world is one step closer to being free of “reprogramming” programs thanks to a judge in New Jersey:

In what many are calling a landmark decision, a New Jersey judge has ruled that people who, in advertising conversion-therapy services, describe homosexuality as a disorder that can be cured are committing consumer fraud. It is the first time a United States court has found that homosexuality is not a disorder….

“This ruling is monumental and devastating to the conversion-therapy industry,” said David Dinielli, Deputy Legal Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a party to the suit. “For the first time, a court has ruled that it is fraudulent as a matter of law for conversion therapists to tell clients that they have a mental disorder that can be cured. This is the principal lie the conversion-therapy industry uses throughout the country to peddle its quackery to vulnerable clients. Gay people don’t need to be cured, and we are thrilled that the court has recognized this.”

This is the latest blow to the conversion-therapy movement. In 2012, California became the first state to ban conversion therapy for anyone under 18. That law was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2013, New Jersey became the second state to pass a ban. Several other states are either working on or considering legislation to ban conversion therapy….

[Judge] Barsio’s order includes the following passages:

• “It is a misrepresentation in violation of the CFA [Consumer Fraud Act], in advertising or selling conversion-therapy services, to describe homosexuality, not as being a normal variation of human sexuality, but as being a mental illness, disease, disorder, or equivalent thereof.”
• “It is a misrepresentation in violation of the CFA, in advertising or selling conversion-therapy services, to include specific ‘success’ statistics when there is no factual basis for calculating such statistics, e.g., when client outcomes are not tracked and no records of client outcomes are maintained.”

“The judge’s determination today that it is a misrepresentation to tell consumers that homosexuality is a disorder is an important step forward in this case and also a victory for showing that conversion-therapy proponents lack any valid basis to continue to promote their abusive practices,” said James L. Bromley, a Partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, one of the plaintiffs’ co-counsels. “The harmful myth that gay people are sick or damaged belongs in the dustbin of history.”

Halleluiah!

Hi everyone. I saw this headline in my inbox today and had to break my radio silence to update given how core this issue was to Luke and Reid’s story.

There is a headline in today’s DiversityInc.com noting:

More than 60 politicians and LGBT advocates are fighting to revise a very dated federal regulation that disqualifies gay men from donating organs and blood simply because of their orientation….

Currently, gay men face severe restrictions when it comes to donating organs, tissue or blood.

They are allowed to donate certain organs after HIV testing, but the transplant program is notified that the organ comes from a deceased man who had sex with other men in the past year.

They are allowed to donate tissue only if they have not had sex with other men for five years.

They are never allowed to donate blood.

In contrast, a straight man who admits to having sex with a prostitute or knowingly had sex with an HIV-positive woman only has to wait one year before being allowed to donate blood….

This policy was first put in place in the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS crisis. More than 30 years later, huge strides have been made in science and medicine, and it is common knowledge that anyone who has unprotected sex is at risk, not just gay men.”

Read more…

Sorry I haven’t been able to keep up with either updates or my fic lately, but I’ve finally got a little “me time” so I’m trying to get the rest of my ideas incorporated and published.

It looks like I didn’t do a post when I posted chapter 32 last spring, so here is the link:

Chapter 32: Follow the Wind

And here’s the new chapter:

Chapter 33: Don’t Make Me Poison You

I’m hoping people are still reading LuRe fics as I found dozens of mostly-written chapters in my notes that just haven’t come to the right spot in the timeline. This is, unfortunately, a bit of a transitional chapter, but Luke is heading home in about 2, so things should get more interesting.

Enjoy! Feedback appreciated as always! Hope everyone is doing well!

-LL

Bob asks Luke to babysit Reid and bring Noah to meet Mona Cross from Invicta, a potential investor in Memorial Hospital. Reid babbles, Luke rolls his eyes – it’s all very cute. Then Noah shows up, impresses Mona and slugs Reid. Luke tends to Reid and then PodBob tells Reid he needs to choose between his job and Luke.

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