Ex-gays: treatment of Mr Matthew Grech by Maltese Minister Helena Dalli
Letter to the Maltese High Commissioner in London from Dr Mike Davidson:
Dear Ambassador Cole
I write to you on behalf of the Executive Board of the International Federation for Therapeutic and Counselling Choice regarding the Affirmation of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression Act passed in 2016 in Malta. This law prohibits ‘treatment, practice or sustained effort that aims to change, repress and, or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression’.
For persons who wish precisely to move away from a homosexual or bisexual sexual orientation or transgender identity or expression that they do not desire, this law is unjust and discriminatory. As such it also discriminates against all persons who are able to provide treatment and support to those ends. Consequently not only is it having a negative effect on this population group in Malta but it will also unfairly impact on ex-gay communities in the United Kingdom and other countries should the government of Malta continue to promote it internationally.
This law violates several fundamental freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, such as freedom of speech (Articles 9 and 10), freedom of religion (Article 9), the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8) and other rights such as clients’ right to self-determination in exercising therapeutic choice.
Regrettably the Minister for Equalities in the Maltese government made this law her pretext for launching an unprecedented personal attack in the press on Matthew Grech, a Maltese citizen who shared his personal journey away from a homosexual lifestyle through becoming a Christian in an interview broadcast on ‘X Factor Malta’ in October 2018. She argued that his interview could lead young people who want to ‘come out’ to attempt and even commit suicide. Indeed she went as far as attacking his desire to marry a woman and thus implied change from predominantly homosexual attraction to at least a degree of heterosexual attraction was ‘irresponsible and duplicitous’. This is nothing less than an attack on the individual’s right to marry (ECHR Article 12).
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