SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Jerry Brown this week appealed a U.S. District Court injunction that has blocked the enforcement of a new state law that prohibits providing controversial “gay-to-straight” conversion therapy to LGBT youth.

The notice of appeal was filed Wednesday on behalf of Brown and the Medical Board of California by state Attorney General Kamala Harris with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled Dec. 21 to block the law pending a decision on its constitutionality.

The ban was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1.

A small group of therapists and religious groups have argued that the law infringes on their rights to free speech, but Harris has called conversion therapy “unsound and harmful.”

Harris asked the court Wednesday to look at a recent decision by U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller upholding the law.

“Defendants wish to apprise the 9th Circuit of a related case currently pending before it […] denying a motion for a preliminary injunction that would have enjoined enforcement of Senate Bill 1172,” Harris wrote. “Both appeals involve the constitutionality of Senate Bill 1172 and raise the same and/or closely related legal issues.”