After the three-day Polish Episcopal Conference, Polish Bishops have produced a twenty-seven-page document that revealed that they want LGBT people to be forced to undergo conversion therapy, reports Pink News.
The Bishops indicated that they disagree with violence against LGBT people, but they did mention that they are in favor of the idea of making non-straight people attend conversion therapy camps. From the document, the bishops wrote ” “In view of the challenges created by gender ideology and LGBT+ movements, and especially bearing in mind the difficulties, suffering and spiritual wounds experienced by these people, it is necessary to create clinics… to help people regain their sexual health and natural sexual orientation.” In my opinion, forcing people to undergo conversion therapy is a form of violence, which the bishops said that they were against.
The document also states other benefits of conversion therapy camps, as it says “These clinics also make sense when complete sexual transformation is too difficult, as they can still help psychosexuals to deal with significant challenges.” I’m assuming “psychosexual” is a pejorative term for gay people which is disappointing but not unexpected. What really doesn’t make sense is that they admitted that conversion therapy is “clearly in contradiction” to scientific evidence but still supported the idea because they heard “testimonies” that a “different” sexuality is not a fixed or irreversible thing, but “a symptom of wounds on various levels of their personality.” On top of that not making any sense, it’s also kind of offensive.
This is clearly not the first time that religious figures in Poland have made attacks against LGBT people and I would be hard pressed to find any Bishops in Poland who actually support LGBT people living authentically. The problem seems to be Poland’s ruling party, the Law and Justice party, which is a Catholic, ultra-nationalist party that has a history of being anti-gay. Their influence is widespread and the party has said that LGBT people a threat to national identity and to Poland’s existence which, to me, sounds rather dramatic.
Will LGBT rights ever prevail under such a homophobic ruling party? It’s clear that a great deal of Polish religious figures are willing to go to extreme measures to ensure that gay people don’t exist in Poland so it’s really not looking good from my perspective, but change rarely happens overnight.
Source: Pink News