As the UK considers controversial "conversion therapy" laws pitched by rainbow activists, opposition is coming from unexpected quarters.
Pushback on radical LGBTIQ+ gender fluid ideology is gathering pace in Britain.
This is surprising given the vast power of the rainbow political lobby and the capitulation to it by politicians everywhere in the West.
But as more and more evidence of its harm of children through experimental puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and even surgical removal of healthy breasts emerges, caution is now being urged.
Sadly, this didn’t happen in Australia as Queensland, the ACT and Victorian state politicians rushed headlong to legislate bans on so-called “conversion therapy”.
Make no mistake, “conversion therapy” bans are not intended to stop boys from converting to girls and vice versa, but rather facilitate it.
These laws exist to stop parents, doctors and counsellors from encouraging children to watch and wait before they are rushed into therapies with irreversible side effects.
It’s now illegal in these Australian jurisdictions for anyone struggling with their gender identity to ask for counselling that doesn’t march them in the direction of a gender clinic.
If they ask someone to pray with them, the person who prays can be jailed.
But as the United Kingdom considers similar laws pitched by the aggressive global rainbow political movement, opposition is coming from unexpected quarters.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is the national “equality body” for Scotland, England and Wales.
It is similar to the Australian Human Rights Commission, which here in Australia always pushes the rainbow political line.
However, the EHRC, has responded to a UK government consultation paper, which is gung-ho about banning “conversion therapy”, urging them to press pause.
The EHRC is “supportive of measures to end harmful conversion therapy practices” – and who isn’t? No one wants to see gay kids given electric shock treatment as they were in the 1950s in state-run institutions. No one wants anyone to be coerced.
But “conversion therapy” is meant by its rainbow proponents to clear all obstacles to their freedom to indoctrinate and treat children in the experimental ideas of gender-fluid ideology.
Thankfully the EHRC has called their bluff.
The likely significant and wide-ranging implications of the Government’s proposals for a legislative ban for criminal and civil justice, clinicians and therapists, families and religious organisations require careful and detailed consideration. The consultation document contains no clear definition of what will amount to “conversion therapy” caught by its proposals, nor of the meaning of “transgender” – a term which has no clear legal meaning, is potentially wider than the concept of gender reassignment in current UK law, and is understood by different people in different ways.
Unlike in Queensland, Victoria and the ACT, the EHRC wants to ensure “clinicians and therapists are not prohibited from providing appropriate care and support for individuals with gender dysphoria”.
What it means by “appropriate support” is alternatives to affirming a child’s gender confusion.
“We consider that these matters require further careful and detailed consideration before legislative proposals are finalised and the implications of them can be fully understood.”
If only Australian politicians and our taxpayer-funded human rights bodies had had the same good sense to resist the rainbow bullies who threaten to label as “bigots” anyone who resists.
We now have laws on the books criminalising doctors, parents, pastors and counsellors who seek to provide the sort of care the EHRC thinks should be available.
As rainbow activists, emboldened by their de-gendering of marriage in 2017, shop “conversion therapy” laws around the remaining states of New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia, the UK’s example just might provide the leverage we need to push back on this harmful agenda.
Lyle Shelton is Director of Campaigns and Communications for the Christian Democratic Party. To keep in touch with Lyle and the CDP, sign up here.