NSW to Outlaw ‘Gay Conversion Therapy’

The New South Wales (NSW) government has introduced new legislation to prohibit all LGBT conversion practices from religious communities in the state. However, religious communities are concerned that this will affirm medical practices that harm children. The state Labor government claimed that the move was an attempt to protect LGBT people from therapy practices based on “false ideology” that LGBT people had a disorder or required treatment. It also claimed there was evidence that conversion practices were dangerous and damaging and thus should be banned. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, conversion therapy first started in Australian conservative Christian communities in the early 1970s and later spread to other communities....