TORONTO, May 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Canada’s largest pro-life group is warning the country’s Catholic bishops and school trustees that the Trudeau government’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” for minors will criminalize counselling based on Catholic teaching, and could make it a crime to teach Catholic sexual morality in Catholic schools.
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are instrinsically disordered and the homosexual inclination itself objectively disordered, and that gender ideology opposes God’s plan for human sexuality and His creation of man as male and female.
In a recently released video, Campaign Life Coalition also renewed its plea to the bishops to voice their opposition to Bill C-8, which Justice Minister David Lametti tabled in the House of Commons in March.
“Silence is not an option. The Church hierarchy needs to speak out,” said Campaign Life president Jeff Gunnarson.
“The bishops’ silence is to the detriment of all Christians and all people of faith, not just Catholics, because other faith-traditions will be adversely impacted by the totalitarian law,” added Gunnarson.
Bill C-8 adds five new offences to the Criminal Code. It will make it a crime punishable by up to five years in prison to: 1) cause a minor to undergo conversion therapy, 2) remove a minor from Canada to undergo conversion therapy, 3) cause a person to undergo conversion therapy against their will.
It will make it a crime punishable by up to two years in prison to: 4) profit from conversion therapy, and 5) advertise conversion therapy.
Bill C-8 defines “conversion therapy” as “a practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.”
It adds: “For greater certainty, this definition does not include a practice, treatment or service that relates (a) to a person’s gender transition; or (b) to a person’s exploration of their identity or to its development.”
Even though the Trudeau Liberals have reduced the age of consent for anal sex to 16 years of age, they define a “minor” in Bill C-8 as under 18 years of age.
In the video co-produced by Campaign Life and LifeSiteNews, Campaign Life staffer Clinton Somerton explained that Bill C-8 will affect “our Catholic, faith-based separate schools.”
That’s because of the pervasive influence of Edmonton-based LGBTQ activist Dr. Kristopher Wells, who has been lobbying all levels of government to ban “conversion therapy,” he said.
“To know the exact intent of this federal legislation by Justin Trudeau and the Liberal-appointed Senate, and where its author intends its tentacles to reach in the future, we need only read the words of Kristopher Wells,” Somerton said.
Wells is well-known for his homosexual activism. As director of the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta, he created the Alberta NDP government website on Gay-Straight Alliances intended for K-12 students.
The site notoriously included links to sexually graphic material, such as sex toy advertisements, videos of men engaging in homosexual sadomasochistic practices, and advice to “pay for porn.”
Wells has also shared sexually explicit material on social media, promoted a cartoon comparing Christians to Nazis, defended public sex acts, publicly mocked private correspondences from parents, and promoted various materials that graphically encourage sexual experimentation among minors.
Currently the Canada Research Chair for the Public Understanding of Sexual and Gender Minority Youth at Edmonton’s MacEwan University, Wells most recently was involved in Calgary city council’s plans to implement what critics say is an exceptionally dangerous ban, as Jonathan Van Maren reported this week.
And in his published manifesto pushing municipal “conversion therapy” bans, Wells makes it clear he intends to criminalize Catholic teaching as a form of “conversion therapy,” Somerton pointed out.
Wells writes:
Modern forms of conversion therapy are still happening in Canada, particularly in some catholic [sic] and faith-based schools, which often occur under the guise of “pastoral approaches to care.” Many of these approaches refuse to allow or place restrictions on gay-straight alliances (GSAs), refer to LGBTQ2 students as “persons with same-sex attractions,” suggest that transgender and non-binary youth are being influenced by a so-called “gender ideology,” and enact policies that call LGBTQ2 youth to live chaste lives.
What is common with all of these practices is how they fundamentally disavow LGBTQ2 identity and reassert the belief that LGBTQ2 people are broken, disordered, or damaged. … These actions operate on the same premise as conversion therapy, which denies a healthy and happy LGBTQ2 identity and strives to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression as though it is something immoral, sinful, or contagious that needs to be managed or contained. …
These modern conversion therapy practices have the desired effect of rendering LGBTQ2 students silent, invisible, and vulnerable within their school environments (emphasis added).
“Wells and his transhumanist allies thoroughly understand and can see right through the feeble language of the so-called ‘Catholic Lens’ approach to dealing with the LGBT ideological onslaught of recent years,” Somerton observed.
According to Wells’ vision, the Courage Apostolate, a 12-step Catholic ministry that helps same-sex attracted Catholics live chaste lives according to Church teaching, would be outlawed as “conversion therapy.”
Under C-8, taking a minor to a Courage meeting would be considered a crime punishable by up to five years in jail, and advertising Courage a crime punishable by up to two years in jail.
LifeSiteNews contacted the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to ask if the bishops would be issuing a statement on Bill C-8, but did not hear back by deadline.
Campaign Life has sent all Canada’s bishops a link to the video, and is urging Catholics to contact their bishop to ask him to categorically oppose Bill C-8.
For contact information on the Catholic bishops, visit the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops here.
Campaign Life has also launched a petition against the legislation, which can be found here.