Thank you for such an informative (and nonpartisan) analysis. There are a few conservatives I follow on Twitter who were talking about this, and I wasn’t sure what to think. This post from you was super useful!

Admittedly, though, I do wonder about the constitutionality of the bill. There are a lot of self-help books that I think could fairly be described as misleading or deceptive, but we obviously don’t ban them for first amendment reasons. Based on your understanding of the legislation, do you think California could ban books that promote gay conversion strategies or some variation of them? And if so, wouldn’t that be a major first amendment violation?

For the record, I am 100% opposed to gay conversion therapy, and I strongly agree with the spirit of this bill. However, I’m also a big fan of free speech and can’t support anything that might weaken first amendment protections, hence why I’m asking this question.

Anyways, if you have time to respond, that’d be great. But if not, that’s cool too. Either way, thank you again for posting this explainer! :)