Ban on gay conversion therapy passed at City Hall – without DUP support – Belfast Live
Belfast council has added its voice to the call for a ban on gay conversion therapy – without the support of the DUP.
At this week’s full council meeting (Tuesday, May 5th) 39 councillors from all the other parties agreed a motion stating “it is fundamentally wrong to view minority sexual orientation or gender identity as something that needs fixed or cured”.
Ten DUP councillors abstained on the motion, while three DUP councillors voted against the motion.
The motion states: “Any practice, including religious practice, that is conducted with a specific predetermined outcome, such as changing or suppressing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, is harmful and denigrating, and must be banned.”
It adds: “There should be no special exemptions for religious organisations in implementing a ban on conversion therapy. Any ban should clearly distinguish from safe and supportive therapies, delivered by suitable qualified and regulated professionals, that assist people to explore and better understand their sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression.”
The three DUP elected members who voted against the motion were Councillors David Brooks, Tracey Kelly, and Dean McCullough.
Councillor Brooks said: “I want to speak very clearly when I say my party is against conversion therapy, that I am against such conversion therapy, it is no kind of therapy, and is repugnant to me.”
However, he added: “If we are going to talk about banning something then we really must have a definition.
“Faith groups and people of faith are reasonably concerned about the rhetoric of some activists on this issue which spheres well beyond medical practices, and seem to want to leave open the possibility of regulating things like prayer.”
Green Councillor Anthony Flynn, who forwarded the motion, and SDLP Councillor Seamus de Faoite, who seconded it, were widely praised across the council chamber for their speeches on the motion.
Councillor Flynn said: “It is often pitted as the gays against the christians, or other religious institutions. We have seen this before, because it suits a certain agenda, and that agenda is the complete and utter erasure of queer people from our society. That needs to be challenged.
“It is a self-defeating agenda, because it totally disregards the many millions of LGBTQI+ people who do have faith, and hold their faith as primary to their being.”
He added: “I hope with the passing of this motion we can state very clearly that Belfast supports our queer community, and we want to put to an end to the suffering and to the hardship that many of us face in such vulnerable times of our lives.”
Green Councillor Mal O’Hara tweeted during the meeting: “DUP members were provided a free vote on a ban on conversion therapy motion tonight at Belfast City Council. Not a single one of them could vote in favour. 3 voted against and the rest abstained. Cowards.”
He said earlier to DUP elected members: “Some of your MLAs but not all of them, when they responded to the lobby two weeks ago on conversion therapy, said that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong today, and in the past.
“If that is genuinely where your party has moved to, then you owe my community an apology for some of the terrible things that have been visited on us over the last couple of decades, since the campaign in the late 70’s to save ulster from sodomy.”
He added: “I have said this to DUP members privately, you need to move on social issues. The historic position of your party on these issues are driving people who are under 50, who are PUL background, who are liberally minded on social issues, you are driving them away from unionism.”
The motion also urged the council to recognise “the hard work and dedication” of the Ban Conversion Therapy NI coalition, made up of LGBTQI+ organisations, mental health charities and faith groups which are calling for the ban, and note the “Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK” which describes the practice as “unethical, potentially harmful and not supported by evidence”.
It also noted the Association of Christian Counsellors position that reparative or conversion therapy does not fit within the ACC ethics and practice framework.
Elected members agreed to write to the Deidre Hargey, the Stormont Minister for Communities to support a legislative ban on conversion therapy before the end of the current assembly mandate.
The council also voted unanimously to endorse in full the recommendations of the LGBTQI+ advisory panel, which is advising the proposed Northern Ireland LGBTQI+ strategy, which is expected to be published in December 2021.