His explanation was his ardent love of free speech, a right he believes will be curtailed by the Bill in its current form. So, if Mr Woodhouse is so adamantly opposed to conversion practices, why vote against a Bill which would effectively ban them? "None of us that I know of deviate from this very strong point, and that is: we all condemn conversion practices, unequivocally. "I do feel sorry for the colleague, whose loved one has been harassed and bullied and contacted her in tears, fearful of going out because of that associate’s vote last night," he said. The bare fact that Mr Woodhouse voted "no" seems stark and conclusive, but it takes a reading of his speech on Wednesday - his first public statement on the Bill - to actually understand why Mr Woodhouse voted "no". So, disappointingly, have some of his family, who have had nothing to do with his vote and do not deserve to be targeted by anonymous keyboard warriors. One of those seven was Mr Woodhouse who has been called a wide range of things for his stance, most of which cannot be published in a newspaper. Social media has been running hot this week as the seven MPs who voted against the Bill were named, presumably in the attempt to shame them. Many of its practitioners are firmly devout and some conversion practices involve a religious element, a factor which has made some manifestations of the debate over the current Bill seem almost like a re-run of 1986. It is not just hotly debated whether any of these practices actually work, but the fact that anyone feels the need to try to convert anyone from who they are at all outrages the rainbow community specifically and a wide spectrum of society generally, hence the attempt to end the conversion business.Īlthough New Zealand is a far more tolerant society than it was in 1986 when the Homosexual Law Reform Act was passed, there are still pockets of people who would frown upon a gay teenager or actively discriminate against a transgender person.Īt the extreme end of such prejudice sits conversion, where the allegedly "abnormal" person can, allegedly, be made "normal" - whatsoever that might be. This week the House went through the committee stages of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill, a law change which it will almost certainly pass next week.įor those who do not know, "conversion practices" is a catchall phrase which covers a range of workshops, counselling programmes and other therapies which are intended to convince a person who identifies as gay, or of a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth, to change or suppress their self-identity.