Madam Speaker, I am being heckled from across the way that I am wrong on that, but I genuinely believe that I am not.
The issue of conversion therapy came to light in my community of Kingston not that long ago. It was earlier this year or perhaps late in the fall when it became known that a worship centre in Kingston had been practising conversion therapy for many years. This came to light and was documented through a three-part Global News presentation so that people could really understand and grasp what was happening in our community. It even got some national attention, given the severity of what had taken place. It was a real eye-opener to a lot of people in my community to learn what was going on right inside of it, and many experienced shock as a result of hearing about conversion therapy.
One individual was primarily responsible for being the whistle-blower, so to speak. His name is Ben Rodgers. He came forward after years of going through conversion therapy at the Third Day Worship Centre in Kingston, and he told his story. His desire to come forward was, quite frankly, out of his concern for the way that others may be treated and affected by attending the same worship centre that he did, so I would like to take this opportunity to read Ben's words of what he experienced during his time at the the Third Day Worship Centre in Kingston.
He writes:
My name is Ben Rodgers, and I am a Conversion Therapy Survivor!
When I was 19 years old, I was subjected to a form of change therapy through a church called Third Day Worship Centre in Kingston Ontario. This church wanted to correct me and make me a “good” “true ‘straight’ man” of god. I came out as Gay when I was 18, I was a Cadet, a Football Player, a Singer, Actor, Writer, Artist, Volunteer, I was on my youth worship team and very involved with my church and community. My Mom moved away, back to Kingston, not long after. My brother and his wife and now my Mother who was living in their basement granny suite were all attending this church and all very much against my being gay.
At 19, I was accepted to go to Musical Theatre School. That Summer, I moved in with my Mom...to make some cash and then go off to school. I experienced Kingston’s Gay “Scene”, which was a small bar called Shay Foo Foo’s, and made new friends.
However, soon I started attending Third Day Worship Centre’s Young Adults group. I fell for the entire thing! The rock band style worship team, the dance team, mission trips, evangelism, bible school! I fell for it all!
At first things didn’t seem so bad at first. I felt very accepted and loved. It felt like they truly wanted to help me and...made me feel like they knew god’s path for me and knew how to “fix” me. It was all too good to be true, I fell for it and I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to sing and praise. I wanted to be part of the worship team. To be a part of the church, or any of its ministries, you had to become a member.
I was still struggling with being gay and a Christian. These new leaders, and my mom and family, they did not agree with my being gay. I didn't know what to do anymore. That is when I began attending mentoring sessions, and private counsel with my new church leaders. I was taught and made to understand that I was trapped by the “enemy” or “the devil” and his demons. I was made to write a Sin List; I was made to confess anything that may hold me from my walk with god.
I entrusted these leaders with the fact that when I was a boy, I was sexually molested by an older cousin. Due to that encounter, or so these religious leaders made me believe, I had let a man take advantage of me and let the enemy attach his demons of lust and homosexuality upon me. They made me feel and believe that it was my fault and that I was rendered with demons. That and a lack of a father figure is why I was acting out and why I was “choosing” to live this “gay lifestyle, which is a clear abomination onto god”.
There was a prayer service of sorts that was performed over me to make me straight. My very own pray away the gay, or at least the demons, as they called them.
I was directed to observe a 3-day dry fast, which is a fast where you have no foods and no liquids. This is actually rather dangerous and should never be done without medical guidance which I was not suggested to seek out. At the end of the fast, I was to attend the Sunday service after which I was to be sitting at the front row where the Pastor, Francis Armstrong, his wife, and the church counselor, were going to at the end of the service, pray over me.
After three days with no food or liquids, now I had their hands on my face, head and shoulders. It felt like these people were yelling and screaming in these tongues, “mystical languages” that they spoke, and pressing their hands down on me. Until the point where I either gave in and let it all happen or gave up and let them win. I remember, I went down to the floor and they continued, casting out the demons and praying for me to be “right”.
After all of this I was offered a space in their bible school, and learned as I went along that you either did as you were told or they wanted nothing to do with you. I was instructed to become celibate, to throw away and completely separate myself from anything, and anyone, that had to do with my old “gay life”. They also had very strict rules on how I was to act, and what I was and was not allowed to do. They controlled who and when and how I could be around others, and particularly how I was not allowed to be alone with other males.
This all went on for over a year, where I had to be this “straight” person and deny who I really was. Lying to myself and others. Losing pieces of myself. Losing my faith in the process.
After I was kicked out of the bible school, and kicked off of ministry duties, I was slowly pushed out of the church. Losing where I was renting, losing everyone I knew. It meant having to try and learn who I was after having to cut off so much of what and who I was and was trying to be.
I was made to feel worthless, unlovable, unworthy and lesser than others simply for being gay. I was taught to hate myself and taught to feel like who I am is unclean, and unnatural. All of these things were lies. Lies that I was taught to believe and endure. All lies that I have had to overcome and am still overcoming. I have had to go through many hells in my life to become strong enough to fight back and to reclaim who I am.
Now we must fight to help those that are still going through these tortures. Those that haven’t found their voices or found the support and help they need.
Our Government needs to step up and protect people like me who were vulnerable and made choices because we were being geared and taught, or too afraid not to. Help stop these organizations and people who speak and do and cause these harms.
My story is just one of many. Our voices need to be heard!
Those are the words of Ben Rodgers, as I indicated at the beginning of my speech. It is my extreme honour to represent him as his member of Parliament and to read his words into the record as we debate the importance this legislation. Ben is a hero. He found his way to realize what had happened to him so he could tell his story, so he could blow the whistle to the media about what was going on at Third Day Worship Centre in Kingston, Ontario. As a result of that, the community became very aware of this and there was a huge outlash and backlash from the community as people demanded change.
We can argue over the nuances of the wording in the legislation. We can find reasons not to support it. I am very pleased and happy and I congratulate the previous Conservative member, when I asked him a question, for saying that the most important thing was banning conversion therapy. I hope that means he will vote in favour of this bill, as a number of Conservative colleagues did at second reading.
He also said that the government brought this bill in, that it was its fault, that it could have made it clearer and that it put the legislation forward in this form. The government also accepted the proposed changes at committee. The Liberal members sitting on the committee worked with the NDP and I presume the Bloc to bring forward some amendments and changes. The government certainly respected the parliamentary process to allow the committee to do its work so it could report back to the House with a more improved bill, and that is what we have.
I genuinely hope my Conservative colleagues who voted for this bill at second reading, who have shown they are willing to take leadership on this issue and who are concerned about specific wording will recognize that we went through the parliamentary process. They obviously have a concern, a concern that is not shared by the majority. Now the bill is back in the House. At the end of the day, what is more important than trying to dissect the exact wording and what it implies is that this legislation get passed, so people like Ben do not continue to be subjected to the abuses, so people like Ben are not told in their place of worship that they are unclean. That is more important than getting hung up on a definition because someone happens to think it might mean something that it does not, which, by the way, the majority of members of the House clearly do not.
I really hope the Conservative members do not use that as a reason not to support this bill. I know there will be dissent among members in the House. There will be a few members, probably the one who heckled me earlier in my speech, and that is fine, but the more members who support this, the better. We will not get unanimous support of the House, which I think is fairly clear, but we certainly can show that members can come out in large numbers to represent almost unanimous consent that this is an important issue for people in our country. This is an important issue for a portion of our population that has struggled so much throughout the years, that has tried so much to get governments of the day to wake up and realize that there is no difference between people just because of the way we happen to be born and who we are.
I encourage all members of the House to vote in favour of the legislation, to get it through the House, as a previous member of the Bloc said, before this session of Parliament is over so we can put it into law, make this is a criminal activity and ensure that voices like Ben Rodgers help protect people into the future.
