MICHIGAN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

99th Legislature

February 8, 2018

The Honorable Bill Schuette

Attorney General of Michigan
525 W. Ottawa St
P.O. Box 30212
Lansing, MI 48909

Dear Attorney General Schuette:

We write with serious concern about the conversion therapy “workshop” being offered by FORGE Ministries and hosted
by Metro City Church in Riverview, Michigan.

Conversion therapy is discredited pseudoscience based on the false claim that being lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender is a mental illness that needs to be cured. There is absolutely no scientific basis for this claim. Rather, there is
a long-standing consensus among our nation’s leading mental health experts, including the American Psychiatric
Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Counseling Association, the American Academy of
Pediatrics, and the National Association of Social Workers, that these practices are extremely dangerous and often lead to
depression, decreased self-esteem, substance abuse, and even suicide.

In addition to being harmful and wrong, conversion therapy is also fraud. There is no credible evidence that these
practices can change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. The sponsors of this workshop are perpetuating a
fraud on the families they are inducing to pay for a service that is both entirely unnecessary and impossible to deliver.
That’s why we call on you to immediately open an investigation into the sponsors of this workshop for unfair,
unconscionable, and deceptive practices under the authority granted to you by the Michigan Consumer Protection Act.
The Attorney General has the power and the duty to prevent the sponsors of this workshop from defrauding the families
and young people they are targeting and we believe you must do so without delay.

We also call on you to work with the appropriate federal authorities to investigate probable violations of the Federal
Trade Commission Act being committed by the workshop’s sponsors. In February 2016, a complaint was filed against a
similar conversion therapy outfit—“People Can Change”—alleging deceptive, false, and misleading practices in violation
of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and urging the FTC to take appropriate enforcement action. Similar
action should be taken in this case by you now.

We call on you to open a thorough investigation into this matter as swiftly as possible.

Sincerely,

Adam Zemke Darrin Camilleri

State Representative State Representative
55th District 23rd District
 MICHIGAN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
99th Legislature

Tim Sneller Jeremy Moss Jon Hoadley

State Representative State Representative State Representative
50th District 35th District 60th District