by Tony Rucinski, Coalition for Marriage
On Tuesday the Northern Ireland Assembly spent a whole day on a Bill that would make it a crime, with up to two years in prison, to help someone live by the truth about marriage. MLAs haven’t yet voted. But the Communities Minister, Gordon Lyons, told the Chamber what he found when he read it: “there is nothing in the Bill that states that legitimate conversations between individuals or between a parent and a child are ruled out. It is simply not there.”
Jamie Bambrick is Senior Pastor of Hope Church in Craigavon. I spoke to him recently, to find out what it could do to a pastor, a counsellor and a parent. You can watch our conversation here:
Eóin Tennyson, deputy leader of the Alliance Party, introduced the Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill on 30 June. Clause 4 defines conversion therapy to include “counselling or any form of talking therapy” and “coaching or instruction”. Clause 8 says psychological harm includes “fear, alarm or distress”. Clause 1 says plainly that “It is not a defence that the victim consented to the therapy.” And Clause 7 protects anyone whose intent is “to affirm” a person’s identity, but parents who oppose get no such protection.