09/17/2019
This is a letter I just sent to Red Deer's Mayor and City Council about conversion therapy in their community and the call to ban it.
Greetings Mayor Veer and Red Deer City Council,
First of all, well wishes to you all and a whole lot of love. I dearly miss my former home and hold you all with deep fondness in my heart. I beam with pride at my time in Red Deer and the wonderful work we did as citizens and leaders in shaping a community of welcome and inclusion. I witnessed us grow as a city both in size, but especially in maturity and diversity in no small part to a forward looking council. I hold many of you not just as colleagues in the body politic, but as friends.
As you know, life and work have led me from Gaetz United Church in Red Deer to Toronto where I am now the Senior Pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto a largely LGBTQ2+ congregation that is known for its activism and Human Rights work.
Which brings me to the reason for my writing you…. An issue of import in our country these days is SOGIE (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression) and Conversion Therapy. Perhaps this topic is new to you and you have no idea what I am talking about, or perhaps you are well aware that St. Albert and Sherwood Park City Councils have both banned Conversion therapy in their communities with the process well underway in Edmonton and many folks are turning their eyes to Red Deer next. Several provinces have banned the controversial practice, but it continues in insidious ways across the country, especially in Alberta where it has not been banned.
Conversion Therapy is a practice by which untrained and uncertified community members, usually connected to a church that condemns LGBTQ2+, seek to convert them to straight, cis-gender citizens. Repeatedly the systems and programs have been debunked and deemed ineffective. Conversion therapy has no scientific basis and is condemned by the Canadian medical community, and the Canadian Psychological Association as well as many other professional in associated fields. (https://cpa.ca/docs/File/Position/SOGII%20Policy%20Statement%20-%20LGB%20Conversion%20Therapy%20FINALAPPROVED2015.pdf)
One by one early, leaders of the Conversion Therapy movement have condemned the very practices they founded and come out as LGBTQ2+ themselves. Exodus International, the world’s largest Conversion Therapy organization did a 180 degree turn several years ago and now fully supports LGBTQ2+ people. Here in Canada New Directions, a large Conversion Therapy group did the same and is now known as Generous Spaces, an LGBTQ2+ religious advocacy group opposing Conversion Therapy.
Conversion Therapy is often practiced in church basements with untrained leaders and there have been many cases reported of very real physical, psychological and even sexual abuse in the programs. I highly recommend the recently released Hollywood film “Boy Erased” staring Nichole Kidman and Russell Crow based on the memoire by Garrard Conley about his time in Conversion Therapy.
Furthermore, it doesn’t take crossing the line into abuse to see the very system as abusive. Conversion Therapy tells LGBTQ2+ people they are unloveable, are broken, and need to be fixed. This kind of spiritual violence leads to depression, anxiety, and even su***de of many current, and former clients of Conversion Therapy and has lasting affects on the wider LGBTQ2+ community who constantly hear messages of condemnation just for who they love. Much like Canada’s legacy of Residential Schools, it doesn’t take isolated incidents of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse to show the entire system as wrong.
This is NOT pitting personal rights against religious rights, but quite literally saying that Conversion Therapy a) does not work and b) does very real harm. Human Rights legislation as enshrined by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada permits freedom of religion, but NOT freedom to do harm. As soon as a system or religious belief does harm to people it is no longer a question of Religious Freedom but a question of violence perpetuated on another. Conversion Therapy is a violence and a violation against LGBTQ2+ people. This is especially damaging to young people who are often struggling with sexual identity and forced into Conversion Therapy by parents or guardians or are coerced in the desire to belong. What young people need are the tools for self-affirmation, not conversion.
Expect to hear more and more on this issue in Red Deer in coming weeks and months, both from experts on the subject, as well as from local citizens, a coalition of Red Deerians is being formed to bring the issue to your attention and to ask for your support from some of the city’s most vulnerable citizens. I encourage you to reach out to your council colleagues in Sherwood Park, St. Albert, and Edmonton on why they unanimously support a municipal ban on conversion therapy.
Cheers and Blessings,
Rev. Jeff Rock
(Pronouns he/him/his)
Senior Pastor
Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto (MCC Toronto)
115 Simpson Ave.
Toronto, ON M4K 1A1
(office) 416-406-6228 ext 107
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