THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Dr Mike Davidson, a Christian campaigner with a homosexual past, says others, too, can reject what he calls a sin.
"I don’t want to be outrageous,” says Dr Mike Davidson softly – but it is hard to believe him. The 57-year-old Christian counsellor and campaigner has upset a lot of people lately, with his claims that homosexuals can become straight if they get enough help, therapy and prayer. The doctor has been called deluded and his work condemned as “inflammatory, homophobic and harmful”.
The Mayor of London has just banned advertisements that Davidson and his allies planned to put on the sides of buses, declaring: “Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud. Get over it!” They were meant to mirror a campaign by the gay rights group Stonewall, but Boris Johnson pulled the ads after taking offence at the suggestion he saw within them.
“It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is an illness that someone can recover from,” said Johnson, who feared “a backlash so intense it would not have been in the interests of Christian people in this city”.
I’m expecting a firebrand. What I get is a gently spoken, slightly stooping man with a South African accent, who lives in a neat detached house in the countryside south of Belfast. His wife, Lynore, brings coffee and chocolate biscuits. They have been married for 32 years, during which time he claims to have been turned away from homosexuality by a combination of counselling, prayer and psychotherapy. He also claims to be able to help others do the same. Read on and comment » | Cole Moreton | Saturday, April 21, 2012
