by Tony Rucinski, Coalition for Marriage
Over the past fortnight, Canada has seen a fast moving row over whether quoting marriage-related scripture could be treated as hate speech.
Canada’s Culture Minister, Marc Miller, said he doesn’t “think people should be using the Bible, the Qur’an or the Torah to escape from committing a hate crime”. Canadian bishops have warned this could have a “chilling effect on religious expression”.
In the UK, Westminster is again accelerating towards a ban on so-called “conversion practices”. In the Commons on 10 December 2025, the Equalities Minister said: “conversion practices are abusive and we will ban them”.
Under the draft bill discussed by Sky, conversion practices include attempts to “A: change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, or B: suppress a person’s expression of sexual orientation or gender identity”. Coercion, threats, violence, harassment, or abuse are already crimes. As one MP put it in a Commons debate, coercion “is already against the law. It is also, thankfully, incredibly rare, to the point of being all but wiped out.”
The live policy fight is therefore about whether new law will criminalise ordinary speech, prayer, pastoral support, and even marriage counselling.