Dutch parliament agrees to ban gay conversion
The Dutch Lower House voting. Photo ANP, Lina Selg
Western Europe
The Dutch parliament voted in favour of a ban on “gay conversion” on Tuesday. A majority supported an initiative bill by the social-liberal D66 and liberal VVD.
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Until last week, it seemed that this proposal could not get a majority, partly because the Christian Democratic CDA was against it. But parties had been working on soothing wording behind the scenes this summer.
The initiators have clarified that it will only become punishable to try to suppress or change someone’s sexual orientation ‘systematically’ or ‘intrusively’ and under severe psychological pressure. Thus, a conversation in which a pastor advises a homosexual against living out his orientation should now be excluded from being punishable. For this reason, the Christian Democrats voted in favour.
The criminalisation covers therapies involving electric shocks and faith healing practices. All MPs agreed. But especially the Christian parties felt a threat that the state was interfering with religious freedom by placing certain ethical views outside the legal order.
“Love need never be cured”, said social-liberal Wieke Paulusma (D66). “This law protects vulnerable people from harmful practices that endanger their health and safety. This is a choice for freedom, equality and human dignity.”
Liberal Bente Becker (VVD) was also delighted. “In our country, you can be who you are and love who you want. It is unacceptable that people try to “cure” you of your orientation with prayer sessions or even beatings.”
The two small Protestant parties expressed great disappointment with the outcome of the vote, the Reformatorisch Daily reported.
“The amendments were in no way an answer to all the critical questions and notions raised in the first term”, said Diederik van Dijk of the Reformed SGP party.
Leader of the ChristenUnie Mirjam Bikker found it “regrettable” that the House agrees to a law whose scope is unclear: “The ChristenUnie disapproves of conversion therapy, but also stands for a society in which there remains room for conversations about identity and faith.”
SGP and ChristenUnie tried to request an additional opinion from the Council of State on the scope of the law via a motion, but the majority of the Lower House did not support this.
The Christian Democratic CDA voted in favour of the law. Six months ago, the group was highly critical of the initiative. “Meanwhile, on medical ethics, the CDA seems to be increasingly aligning itself with the progressive, secular parties”, said Diederik van Dijk.
Christian Democratic MP Derk Boswijk is convinced that pastoral conversations do not fall under the scope of the law. “But conversations aimed at changing or suppressing someone’s orientation must be structural, involuntary and drastic, making it clear that a pastoral conversation does not fall under it. We also discussed that in the debate”, Boswijk stated in the Nederlands Dagblad.
LGBT advocacy organisation COC spoke of ’a great victory’. “Gender identity and sexual orientation cannot be changed. By claiming the opposite, you cause lifelong damage to people.”
According to the spokesperson, the COC has received overjoyed responses from people who have been exposed to therapies to ‘cure’ homosexuality. “They finally have recognition that there was nothing wrong with them, but with the people who did this to them.”
The COC hopes the ban will make religious and other groups stop viewing homosexuality as a disease. “After all, you are destroying people with this”, it said.
The Dutch parliament is entering its final weeks before its sitting is paused ahead of elections on 29 October. Under pressure from those elections, parties usually try to get politically sensitive proposals through the chamber. The ban on conversion was already an old initiative, so the House of Commons has passed it now. The House of Lords still has to approve the bill to give it the status of law.
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