Connecticut has become the latest and the seventh state in the United States to ban so-called gay conversion therapy.

Governor Dannel P. Malloy signed legislation into law on Wednesday. The new law bars paid health care providers from engaging in the practice to change sexual orientation or gender identity of minors.

The House Bill 6695 is also known as An Act Concerning the Protection of Youth from Conversion Therapy. In a statement he said that “at a time when we see LGBTQ youth turning to suicide at record rates, to remain silent is to be complicit.”

Governor signed the bill immediately after a unanimous vote in the State Senate.

“To protect the children. We’re doing that to protect innocent people from, quite frankly, hucksterism on the part of people who say they can do that sort of thing,” Malloy said.

There is a board consensus in the There’s a broad consensus in the medical and psychological communities that efforts to turn gay children straight don’t work, WCBS 880’s Alex Silverman reported.

“And in some cases, ruin people or contribute to the ending of people’s lives,” Malloy said.

“We are basically saying, in Connecticut, we take you the way you are,” State Senate sponsor Beth Bye added.

Similar bills have died in the State Senate of New York. However, Governor Andrew Cuomo last year barred insurance companies from covering conversion therapy.

New Pharmaceutical Company will add jobs in Connecticut

AMandeep