The best way to overhaul a culture is to change the way it thinks. Here’s one major way to change cultural thinking: stifle the free exchange of ideas.

This is what’s happening in California right now. Assembly Bill 2943 would make it an “unlawful business practice” to engage in “a transaction” aimed at promoting “sexual orientation change efforts with an individual.”

This pernicious bill is an attempt to silence those who want to help people with unwanted sexual feelings. Many religious and non-religious people agree that we flourish when we honor the basic design of our bodies for both sexual practice and personal identity. This bill is Orwellian: Silencing those who seek to provide help and wholeness to people who are reaching out.

California legislators ought to do what the people have elected them to do: protect free speech and enable people to live a free life.