Editor’s Note: A practising Canadian cleric asks “where is the justice” when it comes to Senate Bill S-202 and House of Commons Bill C-8 (conversion therapy). These two pieces of legislation track each other in forbidding therapies that move an individual away from unwanted, non-traditional sexual orientations and identities while promoting those that move children towards them. In doing so the good Reverend asks many good questions and makes many good observations. The Reverend's letter is well worth the read and a great deal of thought – particularly by Canadian Senators and Members of Parliament.
Dear members of the Canadian Senate, PM Trudeau and House of Commons
I am writing regarding your proposed Bills S-202 and C-8 to make it a criminal offense for anyone, including parents or trained counsellors, to help/encourage a person convert from the LGBTQ+ agenda. Based on some of the negative stories you have heard, I can fully appreciate your desire to make this a law - we live increasingly in an individualistic society and people want to be loved and accepted for the decisions they make about how to live and how they see themselves.
Writing as a Christian, maybe this is a wakeup call for us to consider how we have shared our values - the truths of our faith. In an effort to “do what is right” we have often distanced ourselves from people whom God also loves and we have caused them great hurt. For that, I am pained.
Despite this, I believe you are on the wrong track to make this a bill. Actually, I think anyone who votes for this should be charged with the malpractice of justice.
This bill is totally one-sided, aimed at encouraging anyone who wants to choose to live as a LGBTQ+ person but discouraging anyone who wants to return to choosing a traditional life as a biological man or woman, practicing or not practicing their biological sexuality.
A very vocal LGBTQ+ voice indicates they are born a certain way; that to go against this is to go against their innate nature. I can appreciate that many do have an attraction that is different from the traditional heterosexual leanings. I can appreciate that many have experienced the pain of ostracism from community and loved ones. I can truly appreciate that many want and do commit suicide.
However, I have witnessed many people who became involved for other reasons; e.g. seeking acceptance at a vulnerable time in their lives, molested and thinking this was the way they were meant to live. They also have experienced severe pain. Many want to leave this way of living, not because they were treated hatefully by society or pressured by religious groups, but because they are no longer happy living as a LGBQT+.
Transgenderism is currently a real fad. Like getting a tattoo. (Like the toilet paper craze in the COVID 19 pandemic.) But it is causing many people untold harm! Have you studied the physical health issues that all these changes will have on one’s body with the drugs and the surgeries? This is a mental illness! There are currently many de-transitioning realizing they were duped into thinking they’d be happy living as a different body. Society is blamed for not accepting them, when they cannot accept themselves in the bodies into which they were born. When is the government going to wake up to this!
Rev. Sam Alberry, a person with non-practising homosexual feelings, acknowledging the substantial number of suicides after a sex change, believes one reason this happens is because they hoped the sex change would leave them happier and when it doesn’t they have now run out of hope.
Where is the justice, the freedom for these people who want to change to get the help they may need if you make it illegal for them to seek help? People seeking help for life’s problems will not always be content with a person they consult. We often switch dentists, doctors, hairdressers, …politicians… out of discontent. And yes, we run into “quack” practitioners in any field, some who should be charged with malpractice. But should all practitioners be banned/charged because some got it wrong? If someone doesn’t like the way a mechanic serviced their vehicle should all mechanics be banned?
In the same field, to be confusing children regarding their sexuality is criminal! People are preying on innocent children who naturally have lots of questions as they are growing up and end up being very happy with their born gender. As well, why is such age -inappropriate “sex education” now being taught in schools? (e.g. taught in elementary school how to touch themselves sexually to create arousal.) One teacher told me that what is now being taught would be regarded as pornography a few years ago. Why??? This is disgusting and barbaric!
A teacher was approached by a kindergartener who asked the teacher if she was a man or a woman. The teacher, who was wearing a skirt, said she was a woman. The child wanted to know if she was sure, and then said “My mommy wants to be a man.” This is heartbreaking! We should be mourning this, not applauding this parent considering a sex change! Think of the impact on that dear confused child.
Some counsellors are merely trying to help repair the damage done by sexual predators, and the counsellors/caring people are being punished??
Christians are being targeted with using hate speech against the LGBTQ + community. BUT! I recently listened to an atheist lady raised by two lesbians. She loves them both but longed to know who her father was. She felt a part of her identity was missing. She said the adults said it didn’t matter, that love is love. She said that Christians were the only ones who cared about her, the child.
Doesn’t it seem a little odd, that Canada wants to go from emptying our jails with drug dealers to filling them up instead with people who care enough about others to be willing to discuss with people in pain some of the options that may exist for them? That even family members could now be sent to jail because they care enough to express concern for people they love, and dialogue with them?
Wasn’t it Mr. Trudeau Sr. who said the state has no place in the bedrooms of its people? This proposed law is an intrusion! It is an assault on the traditional perspective of human sexuality reserved between a married man and woman, a perspective that has been the bedrock of strong societies for thousands of years. (The high medical costs of sexually promiscuous lifestyles might also be noted.)
The proposed law does not seem to be sufficiently nuanced to differentiate between expressions of rejection and coercion on the one hand, and caring exchanges of concern and information on the other. Very un-Canadian in my view.
Please, Senate and House of Commons Members, give heed to what you are doing. This Bill is going from the polarization of one group of people to another group. Is this the Canada we want? NOT a good idea!
Yours truly,
A practising Canadian Reverend