Religious Freedom!

How many time have we heard that cry?

Back in the old days, like four or five years ago it meant being able to go to or not go to a place of worship of your choice. It meant not having a state religion.

But now it has morphed into meaning the right to discriminate against people.

Here in Connecticut and nineteen other states ban Conversion Therapy and here we had to make religious concessions.

In England they also are talking about banning conversion therapy.

Conversion therapy ban 'would criminalise Christian parents stopping children seeking transgender treatment'
The Telegraph via Yahoo News
By Tim Wyatt
April 10, 2021


The Government’s proposed ban on conversion therapy would criminalise Christian parents who want to stop their children seeking transgender treatment, a leading QC and Church of England minister have warned.

In a formal legal opinion sent to ministers last week, Philip Havers QC, a prominent human rights lawyer, wrote banning conversion therapy would unintentionally make it illegal for Christians to tell a child questioning their gender that they should remain in their birth sex.

Ed Shaw, the evangelical pastor of a Church of England congregation in Bristol who procured the opinion, said changing the law could “close down freedom of speech, conscience and religion” for him and like-minded believers.

The religious leaders want to be able to torture children in the name of religion. Just like here in the states they think that they should be above the law.

Mr Havers concluded that any of the proposed definitions of conversion therapy “have the potential to criminalise at least some (and in several cases all) of these scenarios unless specific exemptions are applied for faith-based activity, including within family settings”.
[...]
According to the respected lawyer, a loosely-phrased law would not only prohibit church leaders or therapists but also family members from doing anything – such as pushing back against a child’s desire to seek out transgender treatment – which could be later construed as suppressing a child’s sexuality or gender identity.

Stop and think what they are saying. They want the right to force a child straight, they want to use psychological torment to make a child straight.

In 2017, the Church of England’s General Synod voted to condemn conversion therapy and called on the Government to ban it. When asked if the Church supported the idea of a religious exemption in any ban to protect vicars and Christian parents, a spokesperson said they would “look at any specific government proposals when they are published”.

Here in Connecticut the concession we had to make in order to pass the bill was to exempt clergy from the bill… However, is the clergy is also a licensed therapist they could lose their license.

We got a lot of push back from the LGBTQ+ on the exemption but bills in other states got ruled unconstitutional because they didn’t have the exemption and we also knew that we could never get it passed if we didn't..

Others thought that we should also have made the law to cover adults, but they are not being forced in to conversion therapy but they are old enough to make their own decision.