Lyle Shelton Says It’s OK For Kids To Be Forced Into Gay Conversion Therapy

The further we get down this increasingly monstrous and damaging public discussion on whether gay people are people or not (under the guise of the government’s postal survey on same-sex marriage) the more and more the insidious, hate-filled and, let’s be honest, evil underpinnings of the ‘No’ side become apparent.

We’ve already had people suggest on national radio that LGBTIQ people should be put in concentration camps in the style of Hitler, posters boasting homophobic slurs go up around cities and our parliamentary representatives telling us to “grow a spine” whilst vulnerable members of the community demonstrably suffer through it all.

And now another layer of bullshit has reared its face with the foremost figure on the ‘No’ side, Australian Christian Lobby’s Lyle Shelton, revealing to Buzzfeed Australia that he believes gay conversion therapy, the generally church-run programs that offer to “cure” people of their same-sex attraction, should be available in Australia and furthermore that children should be able to be forced into it.

Talking to Buzzfeed News Shelton expounds on his twisted perspective:

I think anyone who wants to seek help for any issue they might be facing in their life should be free to do that. Should people be forced to go to conversion therapy? No, absolutely not.

Now, children — they are under the care and responsibility of their parents, so I think if someone’s a minor, it is up to their parents. And I think parental rights should be respected.

Let’s get this out of the way super quick: Gay conversation therapy is a widely discredited, disproven and obscenely dangerous practice that has zero scientific backing and is categorically known to lead to mental health issues, PTSD and in a frighteningly large amount of cases suicide.

The fact that the most vocal public figure against same-sex marriage holds these immoral, ignorant views is a huge indictment on the dark, seedy underbelly that gurgles away behind the aggressive ‘No’ campaigners.

If you think this article is hyperbolic, well fuck, maybe it is a bit. But do not underestimate the danger of the ideas connected to conversion therapy. Namely that being gay is a choice or worse, an illness. Something that plagues society and must be cured. You don’t have to be a genius to see the connection between this mentality and the roots of homophobia, which as we saw yesterday is violent and rampant in Australia, even today.

These beliefs should be called out for what they are: wrong, dangerous and utterly out of place in an accepting, diverse, modern society such as ours.

Once again friends, please, please, help us take a step away from this kind of bile infecting our communities and towards equality by voting ‘Yes’ in the postal survey and ensuring as many other people you can do as well.

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