BOCA RATON, Fla. — A federal judge has ordered Palm Beach County and the City of Boca Raton to pay $175,000 to two family counselors who challenged a local ban on “conversion therapy” for minors struggling with their sexuality, gender identity and faith.
Robert Otto and Julie Hamilton ran afoul of Boca Raton’s ban on the practice, which considered it to be harmful to the health and emotional development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other youth. A district court upheld the law, but Otto and Hamilton appealed, backed by religious-liberty advocates at Liberty Counsel.
In 2020, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Otto and Hamilton. “We hold that the challenged ordinances violate the First Amendment because they are content-based regulations of speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny,” Judge Britt Grant wrote in the decision.
