It was easy to see this coming. Tory spokespeople and proxies have been making noises for months about how banning conversion therapy might negatively impact the freedom and interests of religious people. (As if a practice that does not work and that leads to suicide is somehow necessary for religious people — who would somehow be oppressed if they could not drive people to suicide.)

Here's what I don't get about the apparent religious motivation behind allowing conversion therapy in the U.K. The U.K. is famously secular. People who live in England and Wales frequently insist that their society is fundamentally different from U.S. society in that respect. They insist that where they live, religion is an intensely private matter that is not appropriate even for discussion in public, and that religion should not (mostly does not) affect public policy.

I have good friends in England who commiserate sometimes that I have to live in a nation where oppression and persecution by religious people and groups is ordinary and expected.

Well, it looks like when push comes to shove, the Tories are exactly embracing that kind of persecution and oppression by religious people.