The British bishops are warning that the United Kingdom’s draft conversion practices bill would criminalize counseling that helps people identify with their biological sex rather than an opposite-sex gender.
What the draft bill would do
The draft conversion practices bill, proposed earlier this year in Parliament, seeks to “fill the gaps in criminal law to target conversion practices.” In recent years the term “conversion therapy” has been applied to therapeutic services that attempt to steer people away from self-identified gender identities and toward acceptance of their biological sex, and the bill would treat that practice as a criminal offense.
In a Nov. 10 statement, Liverpool Archbishop John Sherrington, who chairs the social justice department of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, expressed “serious concern” about the bill’s scope, warning it could create uncertainty for lawful pastoral care and family conversations.
Order Jonathan Cahn’s New Book, “The Altar of Pergamon” on Amazon.com!
Sherrington’s objection to the bill’s reach
Sherrington noted that the bill purports to outlaw “abusive” counseling, which he affirmed the Catholic Church already opposes in all circumstances. But he argued current law already outlaws such practices, and said the new bill “proposes to extend the legal definition of abusive practices in ways that threaten a person’s fundamental rights, including freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression.”
A similar dispute played out in the United States, where the U.S. Supreme Court in March struck down a Colorado ban on “conversion therapy.”
“The First Amendment stands as a bulwark against any effort to prescribe an orthodoxy of views, reflecting a belief that each American enjoys an inalienable right to speak his mind and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for finding truth,” the court said when it issued the ruling.
Catholic bishops in Switzerland took a different path in May, when they endorsed a national legal ban on so-called conversion measures aimed at people who identify as LGBT, while arguing that legitimate pastoral care, counseling, and psychotherapy be expressly shielded from any prohibition.
Sherrington urged British politicians to “abandon” the bill and focus instead on existing legal protections for those facing abuse.
National Catholic Register first reported the story.
This article originally appeared on American Faith and is reposted with permission.
