LGBT people don’t want sexuality prayed away and won’t tolerate warped thinking of ‘gay cure’ film

TODAY, Townsend Presbyterian Church will host a screening of a film called Once Gay — Matthew and Friends. I’ll be protesting outside with many others.

The film’s premise is that Matthew has stopped being gay. The organisation behind this screening and production, the Core Issues Trust, has form for propagating this unsupported therapy.

It operates from the basis that minority orientation (ie being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender) is wrong and inferior to being heterosexual.

The premise continues: as it is something wrong, it is therefore something that can be fixed or cured.

If you are straight, do you think a course of counselling could suddenly make you LGBT?

It’s nonsense and exposes the warped thinking on which this dangerous therapy is built.

Thankfully, the major UK counselling and psychotherapy organisations, alongside NHS England and NHS Scotland, have been emphatic in their opposition to this dangerous practice.

My particular concern is that, by agreeing to show this film, Townsend Presbyterian is offering tacit support to the idea that being gay can be prayed away.

A report I authored in 2013 identified that one in four LGBT people had a previous experience of a suicide attempt. The World Health Organisation is clear that addressing suicide and poorer mental health among LGBT people requires addressing societal prejudice. The showing of this film and the tacit support for a therapeutic programme which is not supported by any professional body exacerbates risk among LGBT people. It reinforces the idea that LGBT people are somewhat lesser, or that their orientation, or gender, is inherently wrong.

We will protest today to show people that minority orientation, or gender identity, is normal. We will protest to show that you can be happy, healthy and accepted as an LGBT person.

We will protest to show that our lives need no cure.

MALACHAI O’HARA Belfast