It’s high time for a ban on conversion therapy, writes Edd Coomber.
OPINION: Growing up gay in the Assembly of God (Pentecostal) church, with a grandfather as the pastor, just about everything was sinful. Smoking, any alcohol, a huge range of films, TV and music. Homosexuality was never even discussed. I didn’t know what gay was until I found one of the topical pages in the back of my high school Bible on homosexuality, which pointed to the well-worn handful of scriptures telling me how bad I was. This led me to bury these feelings deep inside. Spending your teenage years with this secret is hard. You learn to watch your words and actions to not let slip what you are. The first person I told was a youth pastor, who told me to “pray the gay away”, and followed with a story about their goldfish dying from not being fed when they were away and that, if I didn’t feed these feelings, they too would die.