LEICESTER, United Kingdom – The Catholic Church of Scotland is urging the government not to ban “conversion practices” targeting LGBTQ+ people, saying such a move could create “a chilling effect and criminalize advice or opinions given in good faith “.
The UK government committed in its 2018 LGBT Action Plan to ending the practice of conversion therapy and published a consultation in October 2021. A draft bill for the proposed legal change was included in the UK Government legislative agenda for 2023-2024.
In Scotland – which has its own legal structure – an Ending Conversion Practices Expert Advisory Group (EAG) was established in March 2022, to advise the Scottish Government on its approach to ending conversion practices .
The Scottish Government has launched a consultation on banning what it calls “conversion practices”. The 86-page proposal document was published alongside the online consultation, which closes on April 2.
The Catholic Church in Scotland has expressed serious concerns about the nature and scope of such legislation.
“While the Church supports legislation that protects people from physical and verbal abuse, a fundamental pillar of any free society is for the state to recognize and respect the right of religious bodies and organizations to be free to teach religion. fullness of their beliefs and to support, through prayer, counseling and other pastoral means, their members who wish to live in accordance with these beliefs,” said a Church representative.
The Scottish Government has admitted that there is no universal, international definition of the term “conversion practices”.
However, the Expert Advisory Group (EAG) defined conversion practices as “any treatment, practice or effort aimed at changing, suppressing and/or eliminating sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression gender of a person.
A year ago, Scotland’s bishops said that if a ban on conversion therapy was passed by the Scottish Parliament, it would criminalize traditional religious pastoral care, parental guidance and medical or other professional interventions related to conversion therapy. sexual orientation, “unless approved by the Scottish Parliament”. Mark as acceptable.
The bishops also feared that it would criminalize the Church’s teaching on God’s creation of the human person as man and woman and on the meaning of sex in marriage, and that “anyone who proposes this teaching “a person with same-sex attraction or gender identity issues would face sanctions”, and that this would apply even if the person with these issues wanted help to follow the education of the Church since this law would say that it cannot consent to this teaching.
“Priests could be banned from working in Scotland, the Church could lose its charitable status and teachers and pastoral care workers could lose their jobs. The future of Catholic schools would be uncertain and children could be taken away from their parents. As the first educators of their children, parents alone have the right to advise and guide their children in this matter,” the bishops said in 2023.
Scottish Equalities Minister Emma Roddick said on Tuesday that conversion practices aimed at changing or removing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity “are harmful and destructive acts which violate human rights human beings.”
“Sadly, these practices still take place today and have absolutely no place in Scotland. By continuing our commitment to banning conversion practices, we are leading the way in the UK and joining the growing list of countries taking action to address these harms,” she said.
“The consultation responses we receive will help us think further about the steps we can take to end the harm of conversion practices and protect those at risk while ensuring that freedoms – including freedoms of expression, of religion and belief – are safeguarded,” Roddick added. .
Simon Calvert, deputy director of the UK charity Christian Institute, said the group would encourage Christians to respond to the consultation and would appoint a senior litigator to review the detail of the proposals.
“We are particularly concerned about the government’s plans for ‘civil protection orders’. Courts could impose draconian limits on individuals’ free speech based solely on activists’ speculation about what they might say to gay or trans people,” Calvert said.
The representative of the Catholic Church also urged the Scottish government on Tuesday not to criminalize “traditional religious pastoral care, parental guidance and medical or other professional interventions linked to sexual orientation, which are not approved by the ‘State as acceptable’.
“The worrying lack of clarity on what is meant by the term ‘conversion practices’ could create a chilling effect and criminalize advice or opinions given in good faith,” the representative said.
