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Rodney-based Labour MP Marja Lubeck received a petition on the steps of parliament last week seeking the banning of conversion therapies that aim to make gay people straight.
The petition, containing 5157, signatures was organised by the Rodney Area Rainbow LGBTQ+ group.
The petition was presented by InsideOUT national coordinator Tabby Besley on August 8, along with a second petition seeking the same ban organized by InsideOUT, Young Labour and the Young Greens.
Rodney Area Rainbow Group spokesperson Amanda Ashley says conversion therapies are abhorrent with no basis in modern science or psychology.
“It’s trying to change people from who they are, and what they are, to be someone else’s idea of what they should be,” she said.
In addition to gay conversion therapies, the Rodney petition also seeks to ban other conversion therapies such as trans-conversion therapy, which aims to dissuade an individual from trying to change their gender should they wish to do so.
Ms Ashley said there are various types of conversion therapies. Some may involve a counselling session where an effort is made to programme an individual to change their minds. Others are more extreme and involve electric shock therapy.
She said the therapy is often forced upon people, typically in a religious community where parents might force a child to attend a church-led conversion therapy.
Ms Ashley said conversion therapy was wrong even if a person was unhappy about their sexual orientation and wanted to give the therapy a try.
“I don’t think they should be able to go through conversion therapy because it is not usually done by people who are registered counsellors or psychologists. If someone felt that way they should be going to a registered counsellor and psychologist to get help,” she said.
Marja Lubeck decided to receive the petition after contacting the Rodney Area Rainbow group and asking how best she could support them.
Once an MP receives a petition, it’s delivered to the Clerk of the House of Representatives for presentation in the House. It is then allocated to a select committee for consideration.
Although the receiving MP does not necessarily have to support the petition, Ms Lubeck said she supports this one.
“It’s proven from several studies that have been published that conversion therapy does more harm than good,” she said.
She said countries such as Taiwan and Brazil have already banned the therapy and the UK and Ireland were considering following suit.
She hoped conversion therapy would be added to the Crimes Act so that it would become a criminal offence to practice it.
But the principal of Nelson-based Living Wisdom School of Counselling David Riddell says banning conversion therapy would be a disaster.
Mr Riddell said same-sex attraction is usually the result of social, emotional or sexual damage in the formative years.
“The vast majority of people who discover within themselves a same-sex orientation, can, with a competent therapist, also be empowered to discover the mal-nurture that set that preference up in their psycho-sexual nature,” he said.
He added if conversion therapy was banned many of his clients who had found their way out of an emotional condition that was bringing them acute shame, deepening anxiety and profound guilt would never have escaped from it.
“Any number of my clients have experienced a re-awakening of heterosexual orientation during the course of therapy,” he said.
Mr Riddell holds a bachelor’s degree in pastoral therapy and counselling from Otago University and has undertaken two years of post-graduate study.
