We don’t need a new law against ‘conversion therapy’
by Douglas Murray, Spectator:
[…] Proponents of a ban present this country as though we are seething with fire-breathing zealots, eager to pray the gay away. In fact all the established churches and every medical and psychological authority are already united in condemning such practices. While MPs were talking of electric shock therapies and more, they seemed to be forgetting that it is already illegal to physically harm people in the UK. As it is to exercise coercive control. If any of this was tried on children and discovered, then it should already lead to the punishment of the perpetrators. Where things like ‘conversion therapies’ have been discovered — and they occasionally are, generally among the country’s more ‘diverse’ congregations — then it is not clear how a new piece of legislation would stop them. The possibility that a specific law could be some additional deterrent against law-breaking is the only viable argument that the crusading MPs and activists have on their side.
Still, arguments against — arguments, as I say, raised by not one MP in the debate — should be aired. For at stake is not just an issue of the protection of children, but one to do with the freedom of adults. As I have written before, there is no reason to believe that sexuality is a one-way street which always tilts towards gay. At times in the past an opposite belief held. But today, even as a younger generation are exploring sexual ‘fluidity’, older activists keep assuming that while being gay (and trans) is a totally fixed identity which must always and only be affirmed, there is no flow the other way. But what if there is? Should volunteering, consenting adults not be able to have conversations about this in private?
Even with adults, ‘affirming’ is not always the best course.
Read here (£)
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