C-6, a bill to ban conversation therapy practices, is expected to pass its third and final reading at the House of Commons in the coming weeks before moving to the Senate.
“We pray that if it does get to the Senate, Lord… that it would go no further,” one man said. “And we pray for more time, Father, to actually see opinions sway, to actually see this bill killed forever.”
Since last year, dozens of people from Christian groups have come together regularly like this to pray and strategize against proposed laws that would criminalize conversion therapy practices. Bill C-6 defines conversion therapy as a practice designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, to change a person’s gender identity or gender expression to cisgender, or to repress or reduce “non-heterosexual attraction” or sexual behaviour or non-cisgender gender expression.
Jose Ruba who says he has previously received Christian counselling to “reduce” his own “same-sex attractions” to become celibate, [says]there’s a lot on the line if the bill passes as is. “I'm providing counselling for a young man who's struggling with LGBTQ questions,” Ruba said, “If Bill C-6 was the law right now, I could be in trouble for sharing what we believe to him...He’s a minor. But he wants to talk to me. And that's why we're here tonight,” Ruba continued. “Because young men like him still need to hear the Gospel.”