On Wednesday January 30th 2013, Dr Joseph Berger, a Canadian therapist, and Mike Davidson, who was disgracefully thrown out of UKCP and its affiliation the British Psychodrama Association, held a meeting in Parliament in an attempt to justify their illicit “gay to straight conversion “therapy”. Was this a meeting of enlightenment or was it jst an attempt to claw free publicity and shout down at critics? We at Hull and East Yorkshire LGBTLabour Network+ believe it to be the latter, but don’t just take our word for it.

Let’s take the opinion of someone who was present at this farce shall we? Dr Claudio Pestana, who saw everything that was needed to see of these conversion therapists. Firstly, Dr Pestana noted that the packed committee room was actually full of people who defended conversion therapists’ beliefs, not surprisingly given that the press release for this meeting only went out five days prior, and that our MP, Dina Johnson was given 40 minutes notice. One would have thought that if these people wanted a balanced debate that they would personally invite an MP to the commons who has spoken about conversion therapy, but that was never going to happen. Coincidence? No way. Dr Pestana is of the impression that this meeting was a mere platform for Core Issues Trust and Christian Concern to put forward their argument, and an attempt by Dr Michael Davidson to justify his professional conduct. The inquiry into this takes place soon.

Furthermore, the public present seemed to attack the arguments of human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, it was like they were trying to expose weaknesses in his argument, by trying to tell the “packed” room his current and past views on human sexuality were different. Now, I wonder if they could have been put up to that? After all, if anyone had any views against this practice, they never had long to make sure that they were there to be heard.

Then the God bit came in. Each of those present at the meeting received a pack from Christian Concern, containing an anti gay marriage booklet, the speaking of Jesus Christ in everyday life (yes, this is the same Jesus who said NOTHING about homosexuality), and in an introduction, told the reader that traditional Christian belief is that same sex relationships fall short of God’s purpose in creation. How much harder do they want to make it for God fearing people to come out and lead their lives? Although the introduction does stress that it was not written to convince anyone to change their view of morality when it comes to same sex relationships. Is that so?

Peter Tatchell had it right on the money when he said to the meeting “ the debate isn’t about legitimacy and freedom to offer sexual reorientation therapy, but to change individuals from gay to straight, which represents a homophobic stance”. Mr Tatchell is of course right. If they do it once, they can do it for everyone we’ll hear the crowds scream. Then, we’ll go back to the dark days of the 1950s, where innocent gay people were sterilised by the state for thier “crime”, or, they just kept quiet about it and got married. Of course, there’s no danger there of infidelity, so that is the obviously moral and ethical thing to do, right?

Dr. Berger has an opposing view to that of Mr Tatchell’s, claiming that homosexuality is a concept, and has no biological base, but according to Dr Pestana, Berger’s elaboration of this was rather fuzzy, and any further argument, including whether or not that view legitimises his support for reorientation therapy was vague. Dr Berger then went on to say how it is OK for school children to bully another child for dressing or behaving differently from the others. Mr Berger’s true character?

Dr Pestana commented that “the focus on science was a distraction from the real issue which was the religious argument against non-heterosexuality“, and followed by asking Berger and Davidson “is this the premise on which you offer reorientation therapy”?, but there wasn’t an answer. Dr Pestana followed by asking other questions regarding their religious beliefs, but again, there wasn’t an answer.

To finalise, it seems that Dr Pestana had the same view of this farce as what we did when we first heard about it around 30 minutes before it went ahead, that it would be biased, and that any arguments they could give would be extremely flimsy. What a complete waste of time this whole charade was for people who could have been in the real world, helping those who need it, who had to (no doubt) cancel other arrangements to hear what some nutters believe is morality and freedom of choice. We don’t buy it, nor it seems, do the professionals.