The Interfaith Alliance of Colorado opposes conversion therapy and supports prohibiting mental health professionals from practicing it in Colorado. As discussion has intensified within Colorado and around the country, our team has been in deep discussion with faith leaders, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, therapists, psychiatrists, and other medical professionals to determine how to best respond to these threats.
Conversion therapy aims to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity to align with heterosexual or cisgender norms. These practices are deeply harmful to individuals who are subjected to them, and every major medical organization condemns conversion therapy as unethical, and they are linked to increased rates of suicide attempts, anxiety, and depression.
While faith typically provides us comfort, joy, community, and confidence in our life path, for LGBTQIA+ people, rejection of their identity by their religious community can become a crisis of faith. LGBTQIA+ people have also described the moral injury, spiritual abuse, and religious trauma they have suffered through conversion practices, describing the profound damage to their relationship with their faith, their family, and their religious community.
At the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado, we believe that moral advocacy by people of faith and conscience helps us build a more just world. The effort to legitimize conversion practices and restrict gender-affirming care is dehumanizing and marginalizing, and we call on people of faith and conscience to meet attacks against the value and dignity of our neighbors with moral clarity, rejecting conversion therapy and advocating for the rights and dignity of LGBTQIA+ people.
Read our full position statement on conversion therapy in the PDF below: