MICKY MURRAY

WE DID IT!

Ban Conversion Therapy NI Campaign Update

If you’ve read any of my columns before, or you’ve seen any of my social media, then you’ll be aware that for the past few years I’ve been campaigning to have conversion therapy, otherwise known as the “gay cure”, banned in Northern Ireland, and the public petition which I had created has gained 25,000 signatures, and was presented to the Assembly in March, and there are motions of support going through various councils across NI.

Just a quick run-down on what conversion therapy is, it’s a practise that seeks to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, historically it’s been in the form of aversion therapies and electric shock treatments, which still happens around the world, it’s also sold as a type of counselling, usually by religious or faith based groups. There has been significant research done on conversion therapy and the impact it has on victims, more than half of those who have undergone conversion therapy are left with mental health issues, of which a third have attempted to end their own lives. So is short, conversion therapy kills.

Recently I’ve partnered up with The Rainbow Project, Northern Ireland Humanists, Left Side Up, Cara-Friend, HERe NI, and Stonewall, along with some other individuals and organisations to form the Ban Conversion Therapy NI coalition, which we launched a couple of weeks ago, in conjunction with the Ban Conversion Therapy campaign in GB.

We asked our supporters to email their MLAs, and to make this as easy as possible banconversiontherapy. com made it so that if you go onto their website and go to ‘email your MP’ it will send the campaign email to your local MLA, and the response was astounding with over 5000 people contacting their MLAs to urge them to support a ban on conversion therapy.

On Tuesday 20th April, MLAs debated a motion calling for a legislative ban, and while a motion won’t legislate for a ban, it will put pressure on the Minister for Communities to legislate for a meaningful ban by the end of this mandate, which is due to come to an end in April 2022.

The motion read:

“That this Assembly rejects the harmful practice widely referred to as conversion therapy; notes that the UK Government National LGBT Survey in 2018 reported that 2% of respondents had undergone conversion therapy with a further 5% having being offered it; acknowledges the damage this practice causes to the mental health of those who are subjected to it; further acknowledges that this practice has been widely rejected by medical professionals; declares that it is fundamentally wrong to view our LGBTQ community as requiring a fix or cure; and calls on the Minister for Communities to commit to bringing forward legislation before the end of the current Assembly mandate to ban conversion therapy in all its forms.”

Disappointingly, although not all too surprising, the DUP attempted to remove the line about it being fundamentally wrong to view our LGBTQ community as requiring fix or cure, and attempted to amend the motion so that “preaching, prayer, and pastoral support”, couldn’t be defined as conversion therapy.

To be clear, no one is trying to criminalise prayer or prevent people from talking to their faith leaders, this type of rhetoric is worded in such a way to make people believe that we’re trying to criminalise religion, and that’s not what we’re doing.

Unfortunately faith based conversion therapy is the most common type and the most unregulated, and there are faith groups who actively preform conversion therapy under the guise of “pastoral support” which is why it’s too important to allow churched to have free reign and continue to carry out such harmful practices.

The debate in the Assembly was fairly respectful, up to a point when Jim Allister of the TUV and Jim Wells of the DUP spoke, and parties from right across the house, Alliance, UUP, SDLP, SF, GPNI, PBP, and both independents voted against the DUP amendment 59 votes to 28, and in favour of the original motion 58 votes to 24.

Now what does this mean now?

Well the motion isn’t legally binding, so nothing has changed on a legislative level, but we now know that the NI Assembly is overwhelmingly in support of a legislative ban on conversion therapy, but possibly the most important part of the motion was “commit to bringing forward legislation before the end of the current Assembly mandate to ban conversion therapy in all its forms.”

This Assembly mandate ends in April 2022, before we have an election in May 2022, and after that election the Ministerial positions will be allocated based on the amount of seats each party has won, so there is a potential that we could then have a DUP Minister who will refuse to legislate for a ban.

Going forward the Ban Conversion Therapy NI coalition are going to be lobbying the Minister for Communities, the responsibility is with her to legislate, the Assembly have voted overwhelming in favour, and we have the potential to lead on banning this practice.

It’s been great to see this campaign grow from a grassroots campaign to the top of the political agenda, and we’ve received so much support from the public and politicians, conversion therapy was barely mentioned a year or two ago, largely due to the fact that we had no government in NI for three years, but in the past 18 months the support and the public discussion has grown significantly.

You can continue to follow and support our campaign on Twitter @BanConversionNI, and on Facebook and Instagram just search Ban Conversion Therapy Northern Ireland.

This is an opinion piece from the columnist/contributor and not the opinion of GNI MAG / Romeo & Julian Publications Ltd.