Entertainment

Richard Coles calls for end to conversion therapy

He said the practice causes ‘untold misery’.
He said the practice causes ‘untold misery’. He said the practice causes ‘untold misery’.

The Reverend Richard Coles has called for an end to conversion therapy.

Speaking during an excerpt for BBC programme Morning Live, which will be broadcast on Thursday, the broadcaster said the practice, which attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, causes “untold misery”.

Last month, the Government announced in the Queen’s Speech that measures would be brought forward to ban conversion therapy.

Strictly Come Dancing Launch 2017 – London
Strictly Come Dancing Launch 2017 – London (Matt Crossick/PA)

Coles said he always took his own homosexuality as “a given that I had no choice over at all”.

“I’m a priest of the Church of England and I’m also gay and for me that’s never been a problem,” he said.

“I have never felt there’s any conflict at all between Christian faith and being LGBT.

“But some people do and indeed find that so unendurable that they seek, some would say therapy, intervention, call it what you will, to pray the gay away.”

Stonewall Equality Dinner – London
Stonewall Equality Dinner – London (Ian West/PA)

Discussing moves to ban conversion therapy, Coles said: “I have become convinced that this is probably the right thing to do, because at the heart of this is the problem, ‘How do you fix something that hasn’t gone wrong?’

“And if in doing that you actually harm someone, well then you can’t bring that to an end soon enough.”

Watch the full film on Morning Live on Thursday from 9.15am on BBC One and iPlayer.