The Spanish Evangelical Alliance (AEE) has claimed that new proposals to punish conversion therapy practices with stricter sanctions, including jail terms, are akin to the “anti-conversion laws of totalitarian regimes”.
Spain’s Social Democratic Party have proposed that conversion therapy practices should be included within the Spanish Penal Code. This would see anyone who engages in any form of coercive procedure to “modify, repress, eliminate or deny” someone’s sexual orientation, identity or expression face the possibility of jail terms of six months to two years, according to Evangelical Focus.
Several opposition parties have supported the legislation, but the AEE has responded strongly in a statement, saying that it rejects the bill and pointing out that such practices are already prohibited anyway.
Process ‘distorted’
They described the entire process as “distorted” and dubbed the term “conversion therapies” as too pejorative and one which unfairly suggests harmful practices such as manipulation and torture, leading to the unfair imposition of “intimidating prison sentences”.
Furthermore, the AEE claimed that the proposed regulations “demonise” all such practices to “create a false image”, and that the very term “conversion therapies” can be likened to the “anti-conversion laws of totalitarian regimes”.
They also questioned how it can be right for professional support to be denied to people who are looking to change path, asking where the respect is for “the self-determination of the person”, and pointing out that legislative change may force professionals involved in such matters to “exercise conscientious objection as the only legitimate and democratic recourse”.
A helpful challenge – but I don’t recognise those views
This article was written in response to the article "Same-sex attraction and identity: Are evangelicals on the right track?" …