Christian psychotherapist Lesley Pilkington

Image: Channel 4

Lesley Pilkington, the British psychotherapist stripped of her credentials after offering to cure a patient of his homosexuality, has appeared on TV to express her dismay at LGBT equality.

Mrs Pilkington told Channel 4’s 4thought.tv that she believed “Christianity should be central to our nation today.” She continued:

We have lost the notion of sin. We are now fighting a rearguard action, for example, against legislation that is very likely to come in to give equality to same-sex marriage as to marriage between one man and one woman. The church has been silent, and that is the problem in our society. The church has to stand and have a voice, speak it powerfully, contend for the Word of God, and don’t worry about the consequences, don’t worry if you’re not popular. There will be a lot of people who will agree with you, and I would really like to see the men and women of God stand up powerfully for the truth in this nation today.

The British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists revoked her membership of the professional body last year following the high-profile controversy in which she advised an undercover journalist that she could rid him of his gay orientation. The BACP inquiry found that Pilkington had been “reckless,” “dogmatic,” “disrespectful” and “unprofessional,” judging her guilty of letting her “personal preconceived views about gay lifestyle and sexual orientation … affect her professional relationship in a way that was prejudicial.”

She has since become a cause célèbre among conservative evangelical activists in the UK, who have championed her as a martyr for standing up “powerfully for the truth.”

In fact, offering a version of reparative therapy was the least of her offences. Far from simply acknowledging her client’s confession that he was dissatisfied with his sexuality and behaviour, she affirmed that homosexuality was a mental illness, an addiction and anti-religious. Despite journalist Patrick Strudwick’s denials, Lesley Pilkington told him the root of his homosexuality was low self-esteem, childhood sexual abuse and family connections to Freemasonry.

Her defenders, including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, have been conspicuously silent about such details.

Categorized in: