SNP/Green coalition proposals for a new ‘conversion practices’ law are fatally flawed, a prominent critic of gender ideology has warned.
Writing in Spiked magazine, Malcolm Clark said Scottish Government policy on the issue is being driven by an “obsession with trans rights” but has no basis in fact.
And Journalist Susan Dalgety has recently taken activist Blair Anderson to task over unsubstantiated claims that many Scots are currently being subjected to so-called conversion therapy.
‘Cavalier’ with evidence
Clark – a former trustee of LGB Alliance – said plans in Scotland to ban ‘conversion therapy’ betray “a cavalier attitude” to evidence.
the only source it has cited is a notoriously ropey and unreliable National LGBT Survey
The Scottish Government’s claims of “widespread attempts” to ‘convert’ LGBT people, Clark argued, are just a “veneer to mask the true substance of the bill”, which he said is an attempt to prevent parents “challenging any young person who declares they are ‘trans’”.
The campaigner said: “In fact, the only source it has cited is a notoriously ropey and unreliable National LGBT Survey commissioned by Theresa May in 2017.”
He further observed that a report by a Coventry University research team into ‘conversion therapy’ – published in 2021 – similarly “struggled to find much evidence of it in the UK”.
National scandal
Clark continued: “The tragedy is that there is a genuine conversion-therapy problem in Britain right now.”
The actual tragedy, he said, are the thousands of vulnerable children “being misled into believing they have some inner gender identity that is different from the sex of their body. And they are encouraged to take drugs and have surgery to ‘correct’ themselves”.
And he complained: “Yet it has the fulsome support of the LGBT lobby and the Scottish government. This is one of the great scandals of our age. And yet too few in politics seem to care.”
Legal action
The Christian Institute has threatened the Scottish Government with court action if it goes ahead with a new law banning ‘conversion practices’.
As the SNP/Green coalition published its consultation on the plans earlier this month, the Institute’s Simon Calvert said the scheme threatened freedom of speech and could criminalise the conversations and opinions of parents and church leaders.
The Scottish Government wants to outlaw ‘practices’ that seek to change, suppress or inhibit someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Activists are campaigning for the new law to cover “casual conversations”, “gentle, non-coercive prayer”. They even say children should be able to change gender without their parents’ consent.
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