Miriam Cates

[CassieMaddox]

New report says she was trustee at a church while gay conversion therapy was happening. The kind of conversion therapy that involves exorcism of demons.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ngprp5xdvo

As a director and trustee at the charity behind the church, external from September 2016 to September 2018, Mrs Cates, had safeguarding responsibilities for those who attended

Thought this might interest some posters on here. Not sure I would trust her with safeguarding after this, if indeed she retains her seat.

Oh OK. So noone should talk about historic abuse then. Wonder who would benefit from that 🤔

Exorcism isn’t therapy. Bit weird to conflate the two.

Are you saying Miriam Cates is responsible for historic abuse?
Do you have evidence she is a safeguarding risk?

'guilt by association' is a logical fallacy.

There is a grey area in which people may be seen by some as coercive or exerting undue pressure, but they are not being violent. The better churches recognise this, and when praying aloud for people they are led by the person who has asked for prayer, so avoid telling that person how to behave. It is quite possible that St Thomas Philadelphia had members who did not understand or did not follow this principle fully, but at what point is it reasonable to call this “conversion therapy”?

Would it be “conversion therapy” to pray for someone to be set free from a porn addiction, or a compulsive fetish? Not in my opinion, unless undue pressure was put on the person to conform to other people’s moral viewpoint. Would it be “conversion therapy” if someone confessed to voyeurism, and wanted to be free from that compulsion, and church members prayed for them?

Would it be “conversion therapy” if I were to tell my son that I disagree with his worldview and consider his behaviour to be disrespectful to women? Would it be “conversion therapy” if my son put pressure on me to conform to his transgender worldview?

There is a disturbing self-righteousness these days, both in some church circles and in some “progressive” circles, which demonises other worldviews and equates the expression of a moral standpoint with bigotry. Politicians need to be very careful about the reach of the law into grey areas.

Exorcism is something that churches should be very cautious about. It is controversial within many denominations, and some practices of exorcism appear to me to be unjustifiable.

You are right that exorcism isn’t therapy. The term “conversion therapy” is in itself rather dodgy; the extremes when violence is used are definitely poorly described as “therapy”. Talking therapies are fine in my opinion when they are exploratory, and not fine when they are coercive, at which point they cease to be therapeutic. The dividing line between exploration and coercion perhaps depends on the history and mental state of the person seeing the therapist - what may be OK to say to one resilient person may be abusive to another traumatised person.

Exorcism is not a word used by mainstream churches.

Church language is extremely context specific and open to misunderstanding. It's a culture.

Prayer ministry is supposed to be supervised and people should have training, precisely to avoid misunderstanding and hurt.

People may use phrases like 'to be delivered from a spirit of fear' which really only means 'help them to suffer less anxiety'.

It doesn't involve holding someone down while you sprinkle holy oil and water around casting out demons.

It's easily misrepresented though.

Note- I'm not saying that no one in any church has ever prayed abusively. It happens. But it's called spiritual abuse and is a safeguarding issue that we are all supposed to recognise and report.

The new genderist secular “religion” seems to me to hold all the dangers of older religions and of authoritarian sects. It proselytises aggressively, targets vulnerable children, is highly self-righteous and condemnatory of other worldviews, and pushes for laws that have negative impacts on some sections of society. What I don’t see is much internal or external debate; instead, it tries to close down debate. This is a sign of an immature religion which is not secure enough to welcome challenge, and is typical of rigid sectarianism.

Conversion therapy is abuse.
She was a trustee for the church while this was going on so responsible for safeguarding.
She clearly failed in that responsibility. I'm not saying she was abusive herself but she certainly was part of a culture where abuse was allowed to happen.

I'm just going to repost this;

OvaHere · Today 00:07
''Not a fan of religion so I'm not going to defend churches like this. I wouldn't be a member of one.

''The article is a bit of a hit piece on Cates though. They even admit the alleged incident took place 2 years before she was a trustee. They don't seem to be able to directly link her to what was happening.''

The practice continued while she was a trustee, according to the report. As a trustee she was responsible for safeguarding. This is absolutely to do with her.

I assume the adults involved attended through their own free will?

Don't forgert Conservative peer Baroness Nicholson's proposed bill to lower the gestational time limit for abortion to twelve weeks.

i’m seeing a lot of anti abortion chatter from IDPOL leftists under the guise of disability rights, sadly.

Within the PLP there are a number of practising catholics and Muslims, as well as a smattering of evangelical Christians. They will tend towards being personally opposed to abortion. Given that the LP needs to gain 126 seats for a majority and is forecast to win many more, the number of those with an objection is likely to grow.

However it’s largely irrelevant. I’m not complacent about abortion rights, but there is no real appetite for restricting them. The U.K. is also not the US or parts of mainland Europe where politicians’ religious affiliations are of interest and various faith groups, generally the church, have much influence.
In addition, if you are going to argue that the Tories have had 14 years to fix the Equality Act, as you have, then they have also had 14 years to restrict abortion. They haven’t.

Conversion ‘therapy’ doesn’t exist.

Stop conflating torture with mental health practice.

I had no time for Cates before this news anyway. I'll be delighted if she loses her seat.

The orthodox/biblical teachings are that sex should only take place within marriage and that marriage is lifelong and between a man and a woman. Obviously the latter precludes homosexuals from having sex as they cannot get married and that is no small thing. Heterosexual sex outside marriage is just as much of a ‘sin’. But any ‘sin’ is a problem so ‘living transformed lives’ does not just apply to sex, it also applies to lying, greed, pride, putting worldly things before God… so yes, much prayer is about conversion from ‘worldly things’ to ‘Godly things’.

The proposed Scottish Government definition of conversion therapy would encompass a church minister admonishing a church member who was having a (heterosexual) extra-marital affair, or a parents telling their teenage daughter “you are not going out in that”

Yes, I heard it some time ago and it was all discussed here.

This thread is fascinating.
Similar reports about the impact of LGBT groups and their practices on young people would be (rightly) viewed with alarm in terms of the pressure they might be applying. In fact that absolutely would be described as abuse by many on here.

What is it about this that is different? Why is "strong social pressure" within a church different to "social contagion" or "brainwashing"?

"Conversion therapy" is an accepted term for a load of practices aiming to change someone's sexuality. It's nothing to do with "mental health practice". Why would you want to take away the words to talk about how gay people are abused?

I'm a little puzzled as to why people are trying to prove Cates' 'innocence' here or that she isn't connected to these church practices. It's hardly breaking news, is it? 'MP who opposes ban on gay conversion therapy was part of a church that, er, practised gay conversion therapy'.

No shit, Sherlock.

It was October 2022 when all this about Miriam Cates was brought up before.

At that time it was because she asked a question to Rishi Sunak about the Ban Conversion Therapy Bill.

It was discussed on Mumsnet at the time with details :
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4653634-miriam-cates-question-to-pm?reply=120708442&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

Currently, Church of England doctrine doesn’t allow same sex marriage. This is legal.

Church discourages sex outside marriage. Also legal.
Some people who are same sex attracted and feel they can neither marry in church nor have sex outside marriage seek counselling, prayer support, exploratory conversations about it.
This is also legal.

If I were part of such a church I would expect teaching and ministry to be available for those who seek it.

If I were part of such a church I may not immediately realise that the teaching was straying towards oppression. Concerns would not be widely discussed because of safeguarding, ironically.

I may only notice it after becoming a trustee, for example.

If I became aware of such a thing in my church, I absolutely would not bandy it about. I’d go to the safeguarding officer and the governing body.