The hubris of humanists
By James Kennedy, Artillery Row:
There is no case for a broader ban on conversion therapy.
Conversion therapy did not get a mention in the King’s Speech this year. Perhaps that doesn’t strike you as unusual, but it is the first time in three years that the Government hasn’t included the controversial topic in its legislative agenda.
Many are concerned that a new law on what Stonewall calls “conversion therapy” would go well beyond banning genuinely abusive practices. Rightly, a plethora of laws already strongly protects gay and trans people from coercion and abuse. Instead, a new law is likely to curtail free speech on controversial issues. Those who hold traditional beliefs about sex and gender are highly likely to face criminalisation for sharing their viewpoint. That’s what top legal advice says, anyway.
Sadly, the absence of a conversion therapy law from the King’s Speech is of little comfort. The Government’s position is still that it will produce a draft Bill to introduce in Parliament. That might not have time to become law, but it will almost certainly embolden whoever is in power after the next election.
Perhaps more immediately, Baroness Burt came out top in the House of Lords’ ballot of Private Members’ Bills. She will bring her own Bill on “conversion therapy” for debate.
A former Lib Dem MP for Solihull, Baroness Burt is a vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. Humanism is a pretty difficult movement to define, since it describes itself as merely “bringing non-religious people together to develop their own views”. You could argue it is the conclusion of an increasingly liberalising ‘Christian’ sect which ostensibly promotes the abandonment of creeds.
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