Tyler O’Neil January 02, 2024 at The Daily Signal
Imagine the government told you what you can and cannot pray for, inside your own head.
Such an idea seems better suited to “thoughtcrime” dystopias—such as George Orwell’s “1984” or Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” where the government attempts to control your every thought—rather than to the modern, free English-speaking world.
Yet a government in the Australian state of Victoria has trodden on the sacred space of one’s own inner prayers, all in the name of protecting people who identify as LGBTQ.
The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021, which went into effect in August 2022, forbids certain practices aimed at changing or suppressing an individual’s gender identity or sexual orientation. The law also bans “carrying out a religious practice, including but not limited to, a prayer-based practice, a deliverance practice or an exorcism.”
The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission lays out “prayer practices” that fall under the ban, “with or without a LGBT person.”
According to the commission, “prayers that are directed at a person to change or suppress their sexual orientation or gender identity cause harm and are prohibited.” Forbidden prayers include petitions to God that “ask for healing; ask for a person to change; ask for a person not to act on their attractions; talk about a person’s brokenness or need to repent; [and] ask for long-term celibacy.”
The commission presents other ways that Victoria residents can “continue practicing your faith without causing harm.” It suggests petitions to God that ask “for guidance; that are supporting and reassuring that the person is created in their God’s image and perfect the way they are; that acknowledge their God loves the individual.”
