The testimony of Matthew Grech, who lives in Malta, serves as a blunt warning to the Christian world about how the concept of persecution of religious freedom has been modified over the last few years. Ex-gay, he now faces the risk of being arrested, simply for sharing his behavior change.
According to News Letter, it all started after Grech gave an interview to the PMnews program, where he explained how he left homosexuality. After that, he and the broadcaster were accused of promoting “conversion therapy”, which is prohibited in the archipelago.
The alleged “conversion therapy” of homosexuality is an expression used pejoratively by the media and activists of the LGBT+ movement, in order to demonize professionals who defend the possibility of changing sexual orientation.
It is not a therapeutic practice as critics make it out to be, but a spontaneous process formed by the individual’s own decision to want to change behavior, usually based on some experience or understanding.
In the case of Grech, for example, he decided to become ex-gay out of an understanding based on Christian faith. “I understood that in the Bible homosexuality is not an identity like we do today. And t is not a feeling but a practice,” he said.
arrest risk
Although Grech has done nothing more than share his personal experience of change, the young man has been accused of trying to promote non-existent “conversion therapy”, which according to the Christian Legal Center, a group of advocates for religious freedom, it never happened.
Mike Davidson, CEO of Core Issues Trust, explained that the influence of activism on the part of some groups has caused governments to deny “those who do not wish to identify as LGBT the right to leave identities and practices that are no longer relevant to them”, like the ex-gay Grech.
If convicted, Grech could be punished by paying a fine of 5,000 euros, or up to five months in prison. For Andrea Williams, executive director of the Christian Legal Center, “if a precedent is established in this case in Malta”, other cases of the type could occur around the world.
“We will see similar cases in the UK unless robust action is taken,” she said. According to the Christian Legal Center, the prosecution of its client, especially if convicted, is the first case of its kind in the world.