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Protestors have tried to disrupt an event titled “Man + Woman = Made for each other”, run by a Catholic group at the University of Sydney.
Around 60 students with megaphones, rainbow flags and a trombone drowned out large parts of the event organised by the University of Sydney Union Catholic Society on May 4.
At issue was guest speaker James Parker’s alleged previous association with gay conversion therapy, through a British group called “People Can Change”.
In 2014, Mr Parker was the author of an article in the International Business Times titled “Gay Conversion: I Slept With Over 200 Men, Now I’m a Happily Married Heterosexual Dad”.
Several complaints were made to the University of Sydney Union and university’s vice-chancellor’s office before the event.
On the morning of the event on May 4, the union withdrew its support.
At one point during the protest, Mr Parker walked outside with a handmade sign that read “God Loves Gays”.
Mr Parker also denied being an advocate of conversion therapy, attributing his conversion to “regular therapy”, the University of Sydney’s student council’s publication Honi Soit reported.
He described his previous homosexuality as the result of a fundamental opposition to men he developed in utero, which he claimed to have overcome through a combination of therapy and faith, Honi Soit reported.
“Once I found deep resolution within myself, my voice began to drop, and my walk began to change,” he said to the crowd.
“I began to see women.”
One gay student who attended the event described Mr Parker’s talk as “hurtful”.
Catholic Society president Francis Tamer said he thought “the event went really well”.
He said that those opposed had a right to protest, but said he would “also like to make clear that anyone who listened would have found that [Parker] was not in favour of the things that people thought he was in favour of, such as gay conversion therapy”.
“Hopefully those that did attend did learn something new from it, whether or not they agreed.”
So-called gay conversion therapy has been condemned by the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and the Australian Psychological Society, Honi Soit reported.
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