Stormont’s new Conversion Practices Bill: could prayer become a police matter?

by James Kennedy

Proposals to legislate against so-called conversion practices have officially landed at Stormont. Alliance MLA Eóin Tennyson has introduced his Member’s Bill to ban ‘conversion practices’ in Northern Ireland, just days after the Westminster Government published a draft Conversion Practices Bill for England and Wales.

Ignoring existing protections

The fundamental problem with the new Stormont Bill is that it seeks to solve a problem that existing law already addresses. Coercion, physical harm and verbal abuse are already criminal offences.

There simply isn’t a need for a new law. Gay and trans people already have recourse to justice under the existing legal framework. It is wrong to tell people that they are currently helpless in the face of abuse. Politicians should be empowering people to get justice, not trying to pass unnecessary legislation that threatens basic civil liberties.

A striking lack of evidence

When politicians demand sweeping new criminal legislation, the public has a right to expect those demands to be backed by solid evidence. Yet the evidence base for a new conversion practices law is remarkably thin.

When Stormont’s Communities Department commissioned researchers from Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University to investigate the prevalence of these practices, the results were telling. The researchers struggled for months to find participants and, in the end, identified only ten. Not one of their accounts suggested legal change is needed.

Crucially, we must look at what was actually reported in that study. One individual cited experiencing “prayer, Bible studies and teaching”. Another recounted being discouraged from gender transition during a casual conversation in a supermarket. Are these really the sorts of things politicians want to outlaw at the behest of activists?

The chilling effect on everyday conversations

Let Us Pray exists to protect the ordinary work of churches from a conversion practices ban. A new law that is vague enough to encompass "prayer, Bible studies and teaching" is a direct threat to religious freedom.

The Bill proposes serious criminal sanctions for ordinary conversations. Such a law would see parents, pastors, clinicians and others fearful of the consequences of opposing LGBTQ+ ideology.

Northern Ireland does not need a law that turns prayer into a police matter, pastoral care into a crime, or parental guidance into an offence. We cannot allow Stormont to pass legislation that criminalises the fundamental right to pray, teach and speak freely.