Why More Than 1,300 Pastors Are Saying No to Britain's Conversion Practices Bill, and Why Americans Should Pay Attention

More than 1,300 pastors and church leaders in Britain have put their names to a letter asking the government to change course on its draft Conversion Practices Bill, GB News reported. About 1,500 more supporters have backed their appeal. Their message to Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson is simple: a law sold as protection from abuse is written so broadly that it could turn ordinary Christian ministry into a crime.

Americans should pay attention. Ideas that start in London often show up in our statehouses a few years later, and this one touches the most basic freedoms of faith: to pray, to preach and to raise our children.

It is only fair to start with the government's case. Phillipson has said the bill will not intrude on freedom of expression, religious practice or the choices parents make in raising their children, Premier Christian News reported. Ministers say the law is meant to close gaps in existing criminal law and protect people from abuse.

Supporters make a similar argument. Writing in The Conversation, a scholar who studied the draft argued that it does not criminalise expressing beliefs or ordinary conversations between people. The draft was published on June 25 and would create a new offence of abusive conversion practice for England and Wales.

Promises are not the same thing as statutory text, and the text is where the trouble lies.

The penalties are serious. A conviction for the main offence could bring up to five years in prison, an unlimited fine or both, PinkNews reported when the draft was released. Peter Lynas, the UK director of the Evangelical Alliance, pointed out that the whole scheme is backed by the threat of a five-year sentence.

The exemptions are narrow. The draft carves out legitimate healthcare, but it offers no similar protection for a pastor praying with a church member who asks for prayer, or for a mother and father talking with their own child about faith and identity, according to the Evangelical Alliance. The alliance said it is not clear whether adults who freely seek prayer or pastoral care could still receive it without putting those who help them at legal risk. It also warned that a person could later claim that prayer they had asked for was given under emotional pressure and caused them distress.

That is the heart of the matter. The church leaders' letter warns that the bill could create a "speech crime" for practising Christians, GB News reported. When a law's reach depends on how a prosecutor reads a prayer meeting after the fact, the people most likely to be careful, and to stay silent, are the ones doing nothing wrong.

Abuse is already a crime. Assault, coercion, threats and false imprisonment are illegal in Britain today, and the Evangelical Alliance argues that existing law already covers coercive and abusive practices. Nobody in this debate is defending abuse. The question is whether a new and vaguely defined offence is needed on top of those laws, and what it would sweep in.

Here in the United States, the Supreme Court weighed a similar law this year and sided with free speech. In Chiles v. Salazar, decided March 31, the justices ruled 8-1 for a Colorado Christian counselor who challenged the state's ban on so-called conversion therapy as it applied to her talk therapy with young clients, CBS News reported. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority that the lower courts had not applied sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny, and the Court refused to treat a counselor's words as a lesser kind of speech.

That was a lopsided ruling from a Court that rarely agrees on hard cases, and it rested on a principle older than the Constitution itself: the government does not get to decide which side of a conversation about faith, conscience and identity is allowed to be spoken. Britain has no First Amendment. Its pastors are relying on lawmakers to protect what our Constitution guarantees.

The pastors are not alone. The Christian Institute, the Greater Love Declaration and the Affinity network of churches have sent their own joint letter to Phillipson, arguing that her assurances on religious freedom, free expression and parents' rights are not reflected in the wording of the draft, Premier Christian News reported. The Evangelical Alliance has asked that any law leave Christians free to speak about their beliefs, to pray with those who ask and to offer voluntary pastoral care.

The fight now moves to Parliament. A joint committee is scrutinising the draft before any vote, and it is taking written evidence until 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16. Church groups are urging their members to send in their views before the deadline closes.

The fix is not complicated. Protect people from genuine abuse, and write a clear exemption for freely requested prayer, preaching, pastoral care and parents. If the government means what it says about religious freedom, it should have no trouble putting that promise into the text.