Australian Christian Lobby defends anti-LGBTI conversion ‘therapy’

Australian Christian Lobby defends anti-LGBTI conversion ‘therapy’
Image: Australian Christian Lobby director Martyn Iles / YouTube.

The Australian Christian Lobby’s managing director has spoken out in defence of anti-LGBTI conversion ‘therapy’.

Writing on the ACL’s blog, Martyn Iles said that LGBTI people and advocates are trying to “get at kids”.

He argued that the term ‘conversion therapy’ was itself misleading, conjuring images of torture.

“It is an Orwellian phrase,” wrote Iles.

“It evokes images of electric shock treatments, bizarre rituals, and abuse.

“But the [Labor Party’s] policy statement begins by saying that mere claims about the possibility of a changed gender identity or sexual orientation are false, harmful, and should not continue to be made.”

Anti-LGBTI conversion ‘therapy’ or ‘counselling’, often committed by religious groups, is known to cause serious mental trauma to its victims.

Greens Senator Janet Rice this week shared the story of Chris, a survivor of anti-gay conversion who is now calling on the federal government to ban the practice.

The Australian Capital Territory has committed to banning anti-LGBTI conversion, and in Victoria those who attempt to offer such practices could face prosecution.

In Iles’s blog entry he claimed that young people need to be protected from their own ideas about gender and sexuality, through practices that would be deemed “conversion therapy”, to prevent them from being influenced by “mind-bending” LGBTI support resources.

“If Harry goes to school and is confused by a mind-bending teaching resource like the Gender Unicorn, he may think he is a girl,” Iles wrote.

“Perhaps he played with a Barbie doll for a while and doesn’t like rough sports. Say he then went to the school counsellor who suggested Harry might want to undergo a social transition… the next discussion will be about puberty blockers, because Harry is already 12.

“If mum or dad try to delay such actions by Harry, believing he is likely in the 90-odd percent of children who naturally grow out of these feelings, then they could well be guilty of ‘conversion therapy’.”

Iles claimed that the Labour Party’s policy would remove parental control over the medical treatment of such pre-teens.

“The ALP policy states that this will be deemed ‘serious psychological abuse’,” he wrote.

He promised that the ACL would “soon be speaking out against these Orwellian policies”.

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9 responses to “Australian Christian Lobby defends anti-LGBTI conversion ‘therapy’”

  1. Don’t be deceived into thinking that the ACL represents Christians. It does not, despite their name. Over 50% of Australian Christians voted “Yes” in the postal survey. The ACL represents a vocal extremist element in the fundamentalist/evangelical movement, and their statements in no way represent the teachings of Jesus:

    Love one another.
    Judge not, lest you be judged.
    Let him without sin cast the first stone.
    Why worry about the speck in your friend’s eye when you’ve a plank in your own?

  2. Maybe if individuals such Martyn Iles put away their story books and took some time to read some of the extensive peer reviewed research into our neurobiology and real reasons for human diversity such as Swaab, D., & Garcia-Falgueras, A. (2009). Sexual differentiation of the human brain in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation. Functional Neurology, 24(1), 17-28. they might find they are completely up a creek without a paddle!

  3. Wow to me Martyn has the look of a very mixed up person

    but yeah …..Christians ……..what a laugh. Thats something they are not

  4. If Martyn goes to school and is confused by a mind-bending teaching resource like the Bible, he may think he is a prophet!

    Young people need to be protected from charlatans, like Martyn Iles, and their twisted ideas about gender and sexuality.

    • So you’re saying gender/sexuality education is the same as religious indoctrination. Flip sides of the same coin but only one side is a charlatan.
      Perhaps you should rethink that.

  5. Sadly for real Christians – this group is the antithesis of anything Christian …they are just a nasty bunch of bigots who have hijacked the term Christian.

  6. Dave’s comments are certainly welcomed. The vast majority of the population will tell these christian do gooders to go jump ! Dave unfortunately refers to some nebulous god who loves all of us…sorry Dave, there is no god it’s a figment of imagination and nothing more than an emotional crutch for a person who has probably lost their self esteem.
    That unfortunately describes so many LGBTI individuals because they are so put down and insulted by the so called religious right who have absolutely so understand of how a gay person thinks or lives their lives.
    Our feelings for another individual have nothing to do with the nonsense the religious right wish to impose on us all, so please peddle the nonsense in private ! and don’t impose a mythical god on all of us, especially since your god has done nothing to help a single individual in the past 2000 years..

    • I completely agree with you. I’m an atheist, I just love to bag out the Christians from their own perspective. I don’t personally believe in God but I once did and had the full religious education and thus feel qualified to adopt this perspective when telling Christians why they’re wrong.

  7. Wow, I can’t believe they’ve walked into this one. This is the worst kind of stupid. Even if homophobes dislike the idea that their kids are gay any counselling-based therapy is guaranteed to be unable to wind back sexuality, just as trauma counselling can never wind back trauma (it’s about strategies for accepting and dealing with it). Any suggestion to the contrary is just quackery. Our personalities including our sexuality and our memories are strongly wired in, we can’t change our identities we can only change behaviours (if we actively choose to).

    The absolute bullshit (Christians really ought to remember that their religion has a commandment about lying but whatever) that kids are deciding to swap genders because someone else has suggested it to them is just that. The example of a kid who hates rough sports and favours “girly” pursuits is particularly stupid. Comedian Steve Hughes did a bit years ago about how he dropped PE in school and went cooking with the girls in Home Ec instead. When challenged by the school footy captain about what this meant about Hughes’ sexuality he replied “Yeah, you blokes are all jumping on each other then showering together, I’m hanging out with all the girls and you reckon I’m a poof?”

    So stand by your crap, Christians. Watch your arses get sued for everything you’ve got when it inevitably all goes wrong. And God won’t be there to help you because God loves all her creations including the gay folks, and she made them the way she did for a good reason.