93.55% reject NI conversion practices Bill in public consultation

Over the summer, Northern Ireland’s Committee for Communities ran a public consultation on Eóin Tennyson’s Private Member’s Bill on conversion practices. The consultation opened a week after the Bill was published and closed just days after MLAs voted to advance the Bill to Committee Stage. The accelerated timetable is intended to give the Bill a chance of becoming law before next May’s Assembly elections.

The results of the consultation were published last week, and they make for difficult reading for Mr Tennyson and the Bill’s supporters.

Assembly officials revealed that 93.55% of respondents opposed the legislation. MLAs can be in no doubt about the strength of public feeling. The consultation received more than 1,400 responses in total – a remarkably high number by Northern Ireland standards.

Even among the small minority (6.5%) of organisations and individuals who backed the controversial Bill, some still raised concerns, including the need for safeguards around pastoral support and parental guidance.

Responding to the result, Let Us Pray’s James Kennedy said:

“Anyone who has read the Conversion Practices Bill will understand why there is so much public concern. Even among the tiny minority who support Tennyson’s proposal many are raising significant concerns about the drafting.

 “MLAs now need to take seriously the public concern around this Bill. They should accept the legal advice of top lawyers who say it is deeply flawed, and abandon this shambolic proposal altogether.”

The Bill’s progress so far

[This diagram from the Assembly website illustrates the stages the Bill must pass through to become law.]

In September, following three days of debate – the vast majority of which was taken up by concerns about the Bill – MLAs voted to pass the Bill at Second Stage by 46 votes to 29. The vote fell along party lines: Alliance, Sinn Féin and SDLP members voted in favour, while DUP, UUP and TUV members voted against.

The Bill is now being scrutinised by the Committee for Communities, which will have the opportunity to hear directly from some of the organisations that submitted evidence.

A key part of that scrutiny ought to be Aidan O’Neill KC’s legal analysis of the Bill.

O’Neill warns that the legislation could become an LGBTQ+ activists’ charter, exposing parents to criminal prosecution for guiding their children away from gender transition, discouraging them from wearing sexualised clothing, or restricting their access to hardcore pornography.

For more on what’s been said in Committee, check out our previous blog.

Equally alarming, he warns that the Bill could criminalise ordinary pastoral care, prayer and religious counselling where a minister expresses orthodox teaching about sex and sexuality in a way deemed to be directing an individual away from their claimed identity.