Conversion therapy ban not so simple

Pink News UK reports:

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has explained her government’s decision to delay a ban on traumatising gay conversion therapy, acknowledging a need for “religious freedom”.

The controversial practice of so-called gay ‘conversion therapy’ was raised after more than 20,000 people signed petitions calling for it to be outlawed in New Zealand.

My personal view on conversion therapy is it is a hoax that is quite harmful. You can’t change who someone is attracted to. Sure you can get them to repress it, but you can’t change something as fundamental as attraction.

“We believe more work needs to be done before any decision is taken to ban it,” it said in its report. “In particular, thought must be given to how to define conversion therapy, who the ban would apply to, and how to ensure that rights relating to freedom of expression and religion were maintained.”

I think banning it would be problematic. How do you define it in such a way as to exclude someone just giving advice?

And would a ban achieve anything? I suspect so called conversion therapy is dying off, as the vast bulk of society no longer sees homosexuality as something needing to be fixed.