Page 2228 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
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Careful attention has been given to ensuring that any limitation on the right to religious freedom is proportionate and is the least restrictive approach reasonably available to achieve the legitimate objective of preventing the known harms of conversion practices. Importantly, the definition of conversion practices reflected in this bill is focused. It is targeted in its scope and it catches only those practices conducted with the aim of changing an individual’s sexuality or gender identity.
It is naive to suggest, as some have done, that these dangerous practices could be stopped through a civil regime, such as a working with vulnerable people card or health regulations. There is an insidious and clandestine manner in which these practices are carried out, mostly against children. It is a form of abuse; it is a profound violation of human rights. Abuse of young people is not appropriately best covered by civil regulation, and that is why criminal sanctions ought to apply.
As a final element, I want to touch on an aspect that, generally, I have deliberately avoided doing so over the past four years. Members would be aware that I am a person of faith and I remain a minister in a Christian denomination. I am by no means the only person of faith here—there are people of different faiths and of no particular faith on both sides of this chamber. But my experience brings a particular perspective—I have led congregations and communities of faith where people have sought refuge after being subjected to conversion therapies done in the name of the church and even, at times, in the name of God.
These stories are not mine to tell, but I assure members that they are painful and they are traumatic. Needless to say, they are experiences that we as a society—and faith institutions comprise an important part of this society—must strive to avoid in the future. It is self-evident that Christian faiths and other faiths do not require an understanding of sexuality and gender that leads to simplistic binary perspectives. People of faith can and do hold the view that their values and their faith lead them to an opposition of conversion practices and support of this bill.
Members of the Assembly will have received, as I did, an articulation of this position earlier this week that drew on faith understandings from here and overseas, the ancient writings affirmed as scripture across the church, as well as drawing on medical and psychiatric evidence. I note not only that it drew support from local church leaders but also that the Uniting Kingdom Church of England called for the banning of conversion therapy in 2017.
For people to claim,, as some have done publicly and some have done particularly aggressively that holding a faith should lead us to oppose this bill is particularly disingenuous. I certainly hope that no-one in this place has done anything that has supported or fostered such an inaccurate and abusive position.
This bill is about protecting our most vulnerable. It is carefully considered and it is a human rights compatible bill. I believe it affirms the rights and values that this community upholds and wishes to embed even more now and into the future. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
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