by Lord Jackson, The Critic
This is not an attack on violence and coercion but on thinking differently
As Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Freedom of Religion or Belief, I believe that religious expression is a freedom worth defending. As a Conservative, I believe in free speech and in the fundamental freedom of parents to raise their children according to their own beliefs. That is why I am concerned about the Government’s recently published Conversion Practices Draft Bill. It would give our sanctimonious state unprecedented powers to police ordinary speech.
Nobody is arguing that violence, coercion, sexual assault and abuse should be lawful. We all agree that these things are abhorrent and, rightly, already criminal. The debate is about what additional conduct a new law would criminalise.
And there is no shortage of legal opinion on this question. Numerous KCs have now argued that not only is new legislation in this area unnecessary, but that extending the current law could see parents, pastors, teachers and therapists having to answer to the police and the criminal courts for LGBTQ+ “wrongthink”.
In 2024, I spoke in a debate on this issue after Baroness Burt of Solihull tabled a Private Member’s Bill to criminalise so-called conversion practices. I argued that Stonewall has calculated that a new conversion therapy law is their best shot at silencing dissent, having realised that a law that prohibits people from questioning someone’s trans identity is effectively self-ID by stealth. Although the Government’s draft Bill may be considerably more detailed than Baroness Burt’s two-clause, back-of-a-beermat attempt, the same intractable issues remain. Starting with the evidence base.