Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Dear Attorney General,

I hope you’re well.

I recently saw a video clip on social media where your fellow NSW State politician, Ms Susan Carter, questioned you about the gay conversion therapy laws passed in NSW in April of this year.

Ms Carter was asking whether it was lawful to pray with and for someone that they would stay true to their religious beliefs rather than follow their sexual desires (including, by implication, same-sex desires).

Your response to her questions left me confused.

At one point, she asked, ‘If somebody asks somebody to pray for them [to resist their unwanted same-sex desires], is that banned?’

You responded by referring to the FAQ page of the NSW Anti-Discrimination website, which says:

The Conversion Practices Ban Act 2024 does not prohibit prayer. However, praying with or over a particular person in an attempt to try to change or suppress that person’s sexuality or gender is unlawful… Conduct which is directed to those ends is a conversion practice, and will be unlawful even when a person seeks them out for themselves. [emphasis added]

I find your answer unsettling.

To be clear, I think it’s laudable that dangerous and coercive conversion therapies are banned. I’m saddened that coercive practices occurred around the edges of some churches and ministries, and I hope nobody from the LGBTIQ community ever has to deal with that again.

However, the bill and the Anti-Discrimination website appear to go much further than banning such coercive practices; they now seem to prohibit private, consensual prayer under certain circumstances.

Here’s what I mean.

While it might sound quaint and even strange to secular ears, many Christian husbands regularly pray that they would remain faithful to their wives. Many pray that God would help them suppress, minimise (or even remove) sexual desire for women other than their wives, in line with biblical teaching, so that they would stay true to their marriages.

I have prayed such prayers with and for other Christian men, and they have prayed them for me as well. I trust the law has no problem with such prayers.

But your answers and the above wording on the NSW Anti-Discrimination Website raise two urgent questions:

• If a friend struggled with unwanted same-sex desires as a married Christian man, and he asked me to pray that he would resist those same-sex desires, or even that God might remove such desires from his life, for the sake of faithfulness to his wife — is such a prayer now unlawful?

Likewise, when it comes to the issue of gender identity:

• If one of my children were struggling with gender dysphoria and asked that I, as their father, would pray for them that such dysphoria would pass, and they would be able to stay true to their biological sex — would I now be breaking the law by praying such a prayer for my child?

I would like urgent clarification on these questions.

But there’s more.

The bigger question of Church and State

The above FAQs on the Anti-Discrimination website also raise a deeper issue for Christians and people of other faiths.

You may know that for Christians, prayer is one of our faith’s highest privileges, and something we’re expected and commanded to do (e.g., Phil. 4:6-7). It’s a non-negotiable part of our relationship with God.

And yet, this legislation seeks to curtail that unique relationship and intimate religious practice when it comes to (consensual) prayer with and for other believers. To put it simply, the legislation restricts something that the Bible commands. Such legislation thus enters overtly religious territory by telling Christians how they can and can’t pray, which, as far as the Bible is concerned, is a role reserved for God alone.

Therefore, it seems the legislation de facto establishes a state orthodoxy that functions like a religion, certainly in the area of prayer. Furthermore, this new ‘religion’ isn’t merely different to Judeo-Christian faiths in the areas of sexuality and gender, but is hostile to these faiths by banning certain prayers around these issues.

For possibly the first time in Australian history, you’re opening the door to situations where NSW Christians might need to choose between obeying God and obeying the government.

Is this what you want for the religious residents of NSW?

What about internationally recognised Religious Freedom?

The legislation also seems to contravene item 3 of Article 18 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which Australia is a signatory to), which states:

3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. [Emphasis added]

Your government has decided to limit NSW voters’ freedom to ‘manifest [their] religion or beliefs’ in the area of consensual prayer, and so I would like to know which parts of item 3, above, justify such limitations? For example:

• If I privately sought prayer from a friend to help me resist any unwanted same-sex desires, is such prayer a threat to ‘public safety’, ‘public order’ or ‘public health’, as per item 3 above? If so, how?

• If one of my children struggled with gender dysphoria and asked me to pray for them at home, am I threatening the ‘morals’ or the ‘fundamental rights and freedoms of others’? If so, how?

Banning prayer for minors but allowing them to choose sex reassignment surgery

Above all, I find it strange that this legislation seems to effectively ban my children from seeking parental prayer to help them resist any gender dysphoria they might experience.

At the same time, the door is open for my children to seek out and receive irreversible sex reassignment surgery to match their gender identities – possibly even against my wishes as a parent. That doesn’t make any sense to me.

And so, I look forward to your response addressing the concerns I raised in this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Akos Balogh

___

Republished with thanks to AkosBalogh.com. Image courtesy of Adobe.