UK MassResistance helps stop British Parliament from banning LGBT healing therapy.

After years of trying, ruling Tory government scraps plans to ban so-called “conversion therapy” in the country.

Strategies and relentless pressure from UK MassResistance leaders helped activists across the country to successfully fight back.

September 26, 2023

As this major UK newspaper reported, the LGBT movement was livid that pro-family activists won the battle in Parliament.

After five years of trying, the pro-LGBT politicians running the British government have scrapped their plans to pass a ban on therapy for individuals with unwanted homosexual or transgender feelings and behaviors. MassResistance contributed to this victory by bringing in American-style lobbying tactics and organizing activists to use them.

Reparative therapy – which the Left dishonestly calls “conversion therapy” – has helped numerous people around the world deal with undesired LGBT emotions and behaviors. (See a great explanation of the issue here.) But because it conflicts with the LGBT movement’s “born that way” narrative, they are attempting to have it banned everywhere by making false and absurd claims about it – which the mainstream media zealously repeats.

Five years of promises by pro-LGBT British leaders

The effort to ban this therapy was a massive pro-LGBT campaign that included the compromised and leftist medical profession, the legal profession, and even the Church of England. Even members of the Royal Family joined in, including Queen Elizabeth, who signaled her support for the ban in her final speech.

As prime minister in 2018, Theresa May promised the ban would be passed. Boris Johnson repeated that promise during his 2019 general election campaign. Earlier this year, Penny Mordaunt – who organizes the legislation in Parliament as leader of the Commons and who has a “gay” brother – promised that “draft legislation would be published” before the end of the parliamentary session – which ends today (Sept. 26). That’s clearly not going to happen. Not surprisingly, the British LGBT movement is angry and outraged.

Penny Mordaunt marching in the 2019 London Gay Pride Parade. As leader of the Commons, she promised a bill would be on the docket. It was shocking to the Left that her efforts got derailed.

How did this victory happen? It started with a broad opposition.

Although UK MassResistance has a core group of great activists, they were numerically a small part of the opposition. Various UK groups – faith and non-faith based – came together in what ended up being, as one activist described, “a truly diverse pushback.”  It included ex-gays and ex-trangenders, evangelical church leaders, free speech advocates, feminists, parental rights advocates, and other social conservatives.

The unifying fear was that such a ban would criminalize speech. After all, therapy is about talking to people about their problems. It could even criminalize parents if they talked their children out of these “identities” or behaviors. The LGBT movement wanted to outlaw all such speech!

And although passing this ban was an obsession of the LGBT movement, the general population did not really seem to care. A poll by the Christian Institute found only 4% of the British public supported such legislation.

MassResistance joins the fight

It was still going to be a big battle. The UK groups were great at rallies, demonstrations, prayer, social media posts, and generally getting the word out. But here was a concern that they did not employ sophisticated lobbying techniques to counter the push in Parliament. That’s where MassResistance came in to help.

In 2017, Brian Camenker of MassResistance (in front of window) came to the UK and met with these activists at an event near Bristol, England.

Our Field Director, Arthur Schaper, coordinated that part of the fight. He worked directly with key MassResistance activists across the UK, and they interacted with other groups.

Starting in early 2020, Arthur provided a set of strong talking points along with research showing that reparative therapy is effective, noncoercive, and presents no danger to those who seek it.

Arthur compiled a list of key Conservative members of Parliament (MPs) elected in 2019 who had scored historic victories in long-time Labour strongholds throughout Northern England. Most of the voters in those districts are generally conservative on social issues, like marriage and family, even though they had been steady Labour voters for decades. We had our activists lobby those districts – and those MPs – particularly vigorously.

Camenker and some activists also visited Westminster Palace, where the British Parliament meets, and took this photo.

In June 2020, two of our great UK people, David Skinner and Rodney Hearth, put together a video report with Arthur to explain why British voters should stop the attempted ban on this counseling therapy.

For the next three years, as the threats of a UK therapy ban continued to flare up, Arthur and the UK team kept in touch to fight it. Arthur made sure that as many activists as possible communicated with their own MPs and leaders of key committees.

From time to time, people on our side would feel that it was not worth the effort, since the UK “conservative” Tory Party, like many so-called conservative political parties throughout the Western world, have become decidedly liberal on social issues like marriage, family, and the acceptance of homosexuality and transgenderism. Arthur encouraged them not to give up.

Arthur continued to press them to reach out to different MPs, including some Labour members. Our people understood that any delays opened up a further opportunity to stop this agenda.

In late 2022, some of our UK MassResistance activists informed Arthur the government was still delaying its efforts to ban the therapy. A growing number of MPs were hearing the truth and were becoming uneasy about the possibility of parents being made into criminals for “counseling” their own children.

Here’s how one media outlet described the “problem”:

Earlier this month the leadership in Parliament basically admitted that they couldn’t even get a bill on the docket. The LGBT movement and their allies in the mainstream media quickly voiced their anger. But it’s too late now.

This was a great victory for UK activists!

And as a result, even in Scotland (a far more liberal part of the United Kingdom) it was reported last week that the government there is backing away from its own “conversion therapy” ban.

Final thoughts

Right after the announcement in the press, one of our UK MassResistance team members in Oxford, England sent this to us to pass on to our readers: