‘Ill- thought out, confusing, and fundamentally illiberal’ – Aidan O’Neill KC’s devastating verdict on the Scottish Government’s conversion therapy proposals

Proposals will criminalise mainstream pastoral work of churches and parental guidance given lovingly and in good faith

Aidan O’Neill KC has slammed proposals by the Scottish Government to ban so-called ‘conversion practices’, saying that they mark a disproportionate intrusion into private and family life and freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

In a 46-page opinion, Mr O’Neill says that no “gap” in the law has been evidenced by Scottish Ministers and has warned of the potential impact on the human rights of religious believers, parents, gender critical feminists and others.  

Mr O’Neill says that the proposals, if they become law, will have the “undoubted effect of criminalising much mainstream pastoral work of churches, mosques and synagogues and temples” and adds that “prayers and pastoral discussions could be criminalised” if they did not conform to the new State requirements to “affirm, validate and support the identity and lived experience as expressed and stated by an individual from time to time”.

The proposed new law would also have a devastating impact on family life by criminalising parents who, lovingly and in good faith, and in accordance with their own best judgment and conscience, seek to caution and direct their children on matters relating to sexual orientation or gender identity. He said it would criminalise parents “seeking to control how their child ‘presents’ in terms of, say, clothes, make-up, and hairstyle or imposing restrictions on where their child might go and whom they might see.”

To highlight the kind of parental acts which will be criminalised, Mr O’Neill used the example of a 14-year-old girl who wanted to go out publicly dressed in what might be regarded by her parents as an “overly sexualised and sexually provocative and explicit way.”

The new law would also impact the work of doctors and other health professionals and gender critical groups and would create a chilling effect on individuals and groups, including religious bodies, teaching and preaching on matters relating to sexuality and gender if they “dissent from what the State now stipulates as, to use an Orwellian term, ‘goodthink’ in relation to sex, sexuality and gender identity”.

Falling foul of the new law could see loving mums and dads, and caring clergy, imprisoned for up to 7 years or receive an unlimited fine.

The Catholic Parliamentary Office is currently developing guidance on responding to the Scottish Government’s consultation on a ban on conversion practices, and we will share this with you as soon as we can.