Patrick Harvie has accused Fergus Ewing of supporting "practices that amount to torture" after the veteran MSP raised concerns over Scottish Government plans to ban conversion therapy.
The Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants' Rights said he was not surprised that the backbencher had concerns with the proposed legislation as he had “voted against LGBT people's equality and human rights on pretty much every occasion that it's ever come up since the parliament sat in 1999.”
A source close to Mr Ewing said it was "absurd" to suggest he supported torture.
READ MORE: Proposals to ban conversion therapy published by Scottish Government
Details of the ban on conversion practices ban was announced on Tuesday, with a public consultation set to run until April.
The central proposal is for a new criminal offence of engaging in conversion practice “whether that is provided by a healthcare practitioner, a family member or a religious leader”.
Any action designed to “change or suppress” another individual’s gender identity or sexuality would become illegal.
This could include therapy or counselling, prescribing medication, controlling a person’s activities and appearance or continuously threatening or humiliating someone.
One possible punishment suggested by the government for anyone convicted of is "imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years."
There have been some concerns from religious organisations.
The Catholic Church said there was a "worrying lack of clarity" about the term "conversion practices" and could lead to people giving advice to children "in good faith" being criminalised.
Writing in his local paper, The Strathspey and Badenoch Herald, Mr Ewing raised their concern over the policy.
“Already several voices in the Churches have expressed their concern about this: Concern that it will inevitably impair and impinge upon parental rights. And not only of parents but possibly also teachers, doctors and men and women of the cloth too.
“Remember that it was the concerns of most parents that led to the demise of the doomed ‘named person’ plan. I did not come across any parents who were happy about the prospect of some third party having power - unclear and unspecified power at that - over their own children.”
READ MORE: What is conversion therapy? Explained in five minutes
A ban on conversion therapy was included in the Bute House Agreement reached between the SNP and the Scottish Greens in 2021.
Asked about Mr Ewing’s concerns during an interview with the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, Mr Harvie said the SNP MSP had "voted against LGBT people's equality and human rights on pretty much every occasion that it's ever come up since the parliament sat in 1999."
He added: "He's been an MSP all that time and I don't remember any single issue of LGBT people's equality and human rights where Fergus Ewing has been on the right side of history.
"So I'm not going to pretend to be surprised that he supports the continuation of abusive and in some cases, practices that amount to torture.
"It's really clear that there's a strong cross-party political support for the ban on conversion practices.
"The Parliament has heard harrowing evidence from survivors about the impact on their lives on their mental health and their well-being. Basically, it should be a given that Scotland is going to join the increasing list of countries that have already passed legislation."
Mr Ewing declined to comment.
A source close to the MSP said it was “absurd” to suggest he supported torture.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel