by Julian Mann, TCW
I HAVE had my differences with the Bishop of Leicester, Martyn Snow, but he deserves credit for raising concerns about the threat to freedom of religion from the Labour Government’s draconian Conversion Practices Bill.
Following the publication of the draft Bill on June 25 to outlaw LGBT conversion therapy, Snow said in the House of Lords last week: ‘I have a number of concerns about the drafting of this Bill and indeed particular concerns about the lack of clarity on the difference between harmful conversion practices and perfectly acceptable practices of pastoral care and indeed prayer.
‘If this difference is not crystal-clear within the legislation, it will potentially have a very significant negative impact on what I believe is legitimate spiritual care offered by faith groups.’
He is an unlikely episcopal dissenter. Speaking to the press before the July meeting of the Church of England’s parliament, the General Synod, in York, he sounded just like any other left-wing politician. I raised the recent attempt by the Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, to get Tommy Robinson cancelled from a debate at the Oxford Union on June 17 when he proposed the motion that ‘The West is right to be suspicious of Islam’. I pointed out that Robinson had been invited not to give a monologue but to take part in a debate where he was open to challenge. Bishops who will not defend free speech are no different from other left-wing politicians