Is a conversion therapy law necessary?

[highame]

www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-dont-need-a-new-law-against-conversion-therapy

It is unlikely that a conversion therapy law aimed at gagging psychologists is likely to succeed by stealth. My concern on banning gay conversion therapy has always been about the horror stories emerging (10 years ago?) of young people being subject to abuse because of being gay. My recent concern is that the Transdebate has become included in this debate, not from its initial intention but as a way of preventing genuine discussion with confused teenagers on their feelings about the issues they are facing. I hope there is a wider discussion before these issues come before parliament but sunlight is definitely required to ensure dodgy legislation doesn't cause further conflict

I think gay conversion therapy should absolutely be banned, it's horrifying that there are still people out there who think homosexuality needs curing. Whether that's "praying the gay away" or insisting their gay son is actually a straight girl.

Nobody thinks gay conversion therapy is a good thing. The question is what it means for children and the trans ideology. Did anyone else watch 'Call the Midwife' on Sunday and think it was odd that this week they had a story about gay conversion therapy? Strange timing. I'm deeply cynical about what the aims of this are after the Keira Bell verdict.

@Scepticaltank

This is the biggest Trojan horse I have seen since I was hanging out with Paris in Troy.

This.

@Mollyollydolly

Nobody thinks gay conversion therapy is a good thing. The question is what it means for children and the trans ideology. Did anyone else watch 'Call the Midwife' on Sunday and think it was odd that this week they had a story about gay conversion therapy? Strange timing. I'm deeply cynical about what the aims of this are after the Keira Bell verdict.

That's the way television is now, anything set in the past is mainly there to provide a backdrop for some modern issue. Rather sad because the first two seasons that followed the memoires pretty closely were like a little window on the period.

@Mollyollydolly I felt like I was being lectured through most of the programme and the timing is very suspicious.

www.livingout.org/resources/stories/19/sean-and-gaby

I don’t necessarily agree with the video above. I don’t think God would create gay people and not be happy for them to express that and experience it. However I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what they are doing. I don’t think it’s harmful if they are just supporting people who have asked for support. It’s transparent and linked to the CoE.

Rev Richard Coles had a celibate relationship with his partner. He thought sex outside marriage was wrong, for him at least, and that two men couldn’t be marriage in the eyes of god. If he advised the same to a gay person would he be committing “conversion therapy“?

While I don’t agree with these views I don’t want to stop people expressing them or helping people who believe too.

Surely banning the above could drive it underground in more strict groups with more abhorrent practices. It’s likely some groups are doing this now in illegal ways already, in churches/mosques etc that are less open and engaged with authorities.

He also says "harmful practices" are already illegal and links this with electro shock therapy in a way that implies it is illegal. It isn't, it's actually a treatment for clinical depression that is referred to by webMD as "safe", "painless", and "harmless".

You're confusing two different things here.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a treatment for deprression that involves stimulating the brain by passing electrical current through the head. It is performed under aneasthesia so that the participant doesn't feel any pain.

That is completey different to the kinds of aversion therapy involed in historical gay conversion, which involved showing individuals same-sex erotic imagery and then giving them painful electric shocks to try to condition them out of their same sex attraction. Nowadays these technques are considered deeply unethical and are not practiced in the UK (or I suspect anywhere in the developed world).