Ex-Gay Ministry Sues London Transport Company Over Pro-Gay Bus Ads

By Tyler O'Neil, Op-ed contributor Friday, October 18, 2013

CORE Issues Trust, a London-based Christian charity supporting ex-gay issues, has brought legal action against Transport for London (TfL), requesting the transportation company remove bus ads by the homosexual activist group Stonewall.

"Transport for London agreed to host the Stonewall adverts but refused to host ours," Mike Davidson, CORE Issues Trust director, told The Christian Post in an interview on Friday. He explained that the court had ruled against such controversial ads on buses, noting that they are intrusive and unavoidable. "You can't switch them off then you're walking down the street," Davidson explained.

The court ruled against the Trust, but allowed the group to appeal the decision, which Davidson announced they will do in December. In the interim, Stonewall has kept running the posters on London buses.

"We have filed for an injunction that would disallow them to continue with their adverts in the meantime," the Trust director explained. "We are concerned that Stonewall and Transport for London really have no regard for the legal process."

Davidson complained about a possible double standard. "The argument is they may express themselves while we may not."

Phelim McIntyre, owner of Peregrination Counselling and Life Coaching and an advisory board member of the U.S.-based ex-gay ministry Voice of the Voiceless, went further in an email statement to CP on Friday. "Having followed the case…it is correct that the original Stonewall ad was deemed by the court to have breached Transport for London's guidelines," he argued.

The decision states, "The advertisements by ... Stonewall did not comply with TfL's own restrictions which prohibit advertisements 'likely to cause widespread or serious offence'… The Stonewall advertisement was highly offensive to fundamentalist Christians and other religious groups whose religious belief is that homosexuality is contrary to God's teachings."

"This is part of an ongoing refusal by the pro-gay lobby and their supporters to obey the rules," McIntyre flatly declared. "This is the first case in the UK where an ex-gay ministry has been subjected to such bias, particularly with a major organization then flouting the law in support of the gay rights movement."

In addition to this unprecedented case, McIntyre pointed to "prejudice and discrimination against professional and trainee counsellors and therapists." He mentioned Leslie Pilkington, a counsellor who was secretly recorded by an undercover journalist who claimed to be a Christian suffering from unwanted same-sex attraction. After Pilkington agreed to help him in this "sting," she is now under investigation by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

McIntyre also mentioned Davidson, who recounted his own expulsion from the British Psychodrama Association (BPA) under the direction of the United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapy (UKCP). The organization removed him from their register of professional membership, despite the fact that no client made any complaint against him.

"There was no complaint from any client, but I was expelled for expressing the view on the BBC that individuals who wish to move away from homosexuality should be allowed to with the support of professionals," Davidson explained. He insisted that this move away from homosexual attraction is not possible for everyone, but "where it is possible, I stood up for the right of individuals to use psychotherapists to move beyond it."

The UKCP Guidance on the Practice of Psychological Therapies that Pathologize and/or Seek to Eliminate or Reduce Same Sex Attraction declares that there is overwhelming evidence of harm associated with reducing or eliminating homosexual feelings, and that to attempt to do so is "not in the client's best interests." CORE Issues Trust's website argues that the document's lone citation is insufficient to prove this and other studies demonstrate the opposite.

In addition to his own case, Davidson listed the removal of the Trust's ads from the New Statesman magazine and Total Politics Magazine.

"This is just indicative that gay activists play by a different set of rules than anyone else," Christopher Doyle, president and co-founder of Voice of the Voiceless, an ex-gay advocacy group in Virginia, told CP on Friday. "It's homo-fascism – only one viewpoint can be seen on this issue, only one viewpoint can be heard," he declared.

Doyle argued that no actual therapist helping people control unwanted same sex attraction calls it "an illness to be cured." "The fact is, sexuality is complex, and sexual orientation is likely to change," said the VoV president, who once identified as homosexual. He compared those who argue that sexual orientation is set from birth to "holocaust deniers."