Some angry LGBT activists want to silence debate on sexuality and gender

Last year Stormont passed a motion calling for a ban, and legislation is likely to come forward when the Executive returns.

It’s expected to be led by Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey (who also plans to launch a general “LGBTQI+ Strategy” – something she is drawing up “through a co-design approach working closely the sector”).

The “Ban Conversion Therapy” group, chaired by Jayne Ozanne and backed by controversial groups like Stonewall and Mermaids, says it is “working with the minister and her department” on a ban.

It also claims in a new briefing that giving any “exemption” for “private prayer and ‘casual conversations’” will “allow conversion practices to continue.” Calling for “casual conversations” to be outlawed is a new low.

To the uninitiated, the term “conversion therapy” suggests abusive practices that most assumed had long been consigned to the history books in the UK. If such abuses are still going on, they should obviously be stopped.

But it’s clear that the truly abusive practices they cite, such as electro-shock treatments and the horrifically titled “corrective rape”, are already illegal.

So what is it that activists really want banned? As many are realising, it is everyday speech.

Some angry LGBT campaigners are seeking to silence debate on issues of sexuality and gender, especially in churches. They want a kind of LGBT blasphemy law.

The “Ban Conversion Therapy” group is saying that discussions had by people throughout the country, sharing their personal thoughts on gender and sexuality, should be outlawed.

How this could ever be claimed as “conversion therapy” is not clear. People chat every day around the dinner table, at the school gates, or on the phone with a friend.

People should be able to debate and disagree with one another without the fear of police investigation over a misunderstood or misconstrued comment. But some activists appear to want to scare people into yielding to their thinking.

Criminalising “private prayer” is perhaps even more ridiculous. When The Ozanne Foundation carried out surveys into the alleged prevalence of “conversion therapy” in the UK, they included those who said they had “pleaded with God” or prayed alone that God would change them.

Quite how praying alone constitutes conversion therapy, and how the state would ever outlaw it, is not explained. Do they expect people to report themselves to the police?

These claims are plainly ludicrous. The Assembly cannot outlaw praying or “casual conversations”. Doing so would unlawfully interfere with human rights guaranteed by the European Convention.

Lawyers acting for The Christian Institute made this clear to the NI Executive last year, laying the groundwork for bringing a judicial review should such a repressive law be introduced, relying on advice from top human rights lawyer, Jason Coppel QC.

There is, of course, no human right to bully gay or trans people, and this is not what Christians seek. We believe in loving your neighbour. But there is a human right to express mainstream religious beliefs about sex and gender, and to invite other people to share those beliefs. Gender critical feminists have the same right in respect of their opinions about trans issues.

An LGBT blasphemy law, in the guise of a conversion therapy ban, would infringe these rights.

Governments around the UK must be very careful not to be seduced by the siren voices of the “Ban Conversion Therapy” campaign into criminalising private prayer and casual conversations.

* James Kennedy is originally from Northern Ireland and now works in England as a public affairs assistant with the Christian Institute