Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has spoken about her own experience going through conversion ‘therapy’ at 16-years-old, after Parliament voted last night to ban the practice.
"I desperately tried to ‘pray the gay’ away - to be accepted by my family, community and church. My 'illness' and 'weakness' to temptation was etched as sin into my skin. It took a long time to shake that shame and trauma," Allan tweeted.
Speaking to 1News, Allan said she didn’t hold grievances towards her church community and that she wanted people to learn from past mistakes.
“I was raised in Pentecostal churches my whole life and my family were leaders in our churches,” the MP said.
“I look with a lot of love to all of those people within my community, because they were doing what they thought was right at the time, and never knowing what the harm would be.”
Allan said that young people were taught that they were “fundamentally broken” and left with long-term damage and a sense of disconnection from conversion practices.
She said in some churches she was part of, people were paired with role models and taught "how to be good heterosexuals".
When Allan began experiencing love, "that might not have conformed to those expectations of myself and that of my church", she reached out to leadership.
“You try to look to role models to help bat these horrific things out of your life and when you fail to do so... that’s a horrific experience to go through if your identity is based on being a member of a faith-based community.”
Since then, members of Allan's church community had apologised.
“A lot of people from my church have reached out to express their sorrow, had they known the impact, if we could’ve gone back in time,” she said. “I think collectively we have grown so much as a nation.”
She told 1News she was proud of the outcome that saw an overwhelming number of MPs voting to ban conversion practices.
“The thing that gives me the most amount of hope is that last night, 112 MPs from all walks of life and different belief systems, came together and said that practice was no longer something we recognise as a New Zealand value.
“When you see that support from across the House... you know that we are really speaking to the heart of where New Zealand’s cultural values are.”
The Government’s Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill passed its third reading on Tuesday night. It would ban the practice in New Zealand after it received Royal Assent.
Labour, the Green Party, ACT, Te Pāti Māori and 25 National MPs voted in favour, while eight National MPs, Simon Bridges, Simeon Brown, Melissa Lee, Todd McClay, Simon O’Connor, Chris Penk. Shane Reti and Michael Woodhouse, voted against it.
SHARE ME