X Factor Malta silences ex-gay singer’s Christian testimony
By Carys Moseley, Christian Concern.
[…] According to English-language news site Lovin Malta, in an X Factor pre-audition interview, Matthew Grech said that he used to live as a gay man until he became a Christian and followed Jesus Christ. He also said that he believed any ‘marriage’ other than between one man and one woman is a sin. This made some LGBT activists and allies who were viewing the show very angry. The news spread from Malta to the gay press in Italy and to Pink News in London…
…LGBT activists and their allies managed to get the video clip of the interview taken off Facebook and YouTube within minutes. They also slammed the judges of X Factor Malta for not criticising Matthew Grech’s comments about homosexuality and God’s pattern for marriage. It appears that they expected music judges to judge the beliefs and attitudes of contestants as well. The excuse they had for this stance was that the television station that broadcasts X Factor, TVM, is state-funded, and that as such the interview amounted to advertisement for ‘gay conversion therapy’, which has been illegal in Malta since 2016.
Maltese Equality Minister, Helena Dalli, criticised the TVM station for allowing the interview with Grech to be broadcast. Responding to a question by Byron Camilleri, Labour Party Whip, she said:
“That interview should never have been aired in the first place. It did untold damage to our efforts to change social attitudes towards minorities, including LGBTQ youths. Gay youths don’t need forgiveness or healing, they need understanding.”
…The whole fiasco around Matthew Grech’s interview raises the question as to whether the ex-gay movement is being suppressed in the western world. Malta was the first country to ban therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction and gender identity, and its law did not have a lower age limit. The law prohibited advertising of such therapy and offering it. The fact that the press report on Matthew Grech suggests he was not actually advertising any type of therapy shows how distorted the media treatment of this topic has become. It seems that the the meaning of ‘advertising’ has been stretched to mean simply talking out loud about leaving homosexuality behind. In addition, the real coded meaning of the term ‘conversion therapy’ here appears to be ‘choosing to leave homosexuality regardless of whether therapy is involved in the process’!
See also: Silenced X-Factor Malta ex-gay contestant speaks out
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