Core Issues Trust (CIT), a counselling service that offers help to people who voluntarily come to talk about their same-sex attraction, has been told by Barclays they are withdrawing its banking services in mid-September.
Led by Mike Davidson, the group received abusive calls and messages, and has been dropped by multiple service providers, including Paypal and Mailchimp since being targeted through a social media campaign.
Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern, commented: ‘If it is CIT first, it will be churches next. If banks and other service providers start to placate social media campaigns by unilaterally terminating their accounts, then the UK will be a very difficult place for Biblically faithful Christian ministries.’
Inaccurate reporting
Earlier in the summer, the BBC ran a report on its homepage, of a gay man talking about his experience of ‘conversion therapy’. It inaccurately represented CIT as the organisation with which the man had undergone a kind of therapy. CIT confirmed to en that the man had undertaken no therapy with them, and he had only contacted them to discuss the possibility of therapy. The report did not make this clear.
CIT only works with people who choose, of their own volition, to talk through their attractions. It does not promise an individual they will change their sexual attraction. This talking therapy is misleadingly lumped together with abusive physical therapies or historical practices that CIT condemns. The lazy catch-all ‘conversion therapy’ is used to describe CIT’s talking therapy.
The abuse CIT received has been reported to relevant parliamentary groups and the Northern Ireland Charity Commission. Some abusive texts have been reported to the police for expressing the hope that staff and family members of CIT would die or be raped.
