The EEA’s Socio-Political Team (Julia Doxat-Purser, Socio-Political Representative, and Dr. Tatiana Kopaleishvili, Brussels Representative) has published a new EEA resource titled “An EU-wide Conversion Therapy Ban?”. It is available for download on the EEA website.

The document explains the potential push for an EU-wide conversion therapy ban. Definitions of “conversion therapy” vary from stopping torture of gay people to preventing a church from defining gay relationships as sinful. The main point EEA’s Socio-Political Team wants to emphasise is that this is a key issue that requires prayer and wise advocacy that focuses on human rights, rather than a battle over gay rights. The EEA will be working to try to persuade the EU institutions to drop the idea completely or, if that proves impossible, to define a ban as tightly as possible. Already, EEA has been busy with legal analysis and discussing strategy with partners. For several years, the EEA’s Socio-Political Team has regularly gathered a group of member National Evangelical Alliances looking at this kind of LGBTQ+ related human rights issues. The group has been supporting each other in trying to prevent or limit the impact of conversion therapy bans at national level. This also shows that the EEA has good foundations for some coordinated campaigning if it proves necessary at EU level.