It was a great disappointment, if not exactly a surprise, to read a recent
letter
from British Christian leaders urging the U.K. government to ban “conversion therapy” for transgender persons. The signatories were calling for such a ban to be included in a proposed law aimed at protecting gay persons from efforts to help them change their sexual orientations. Transgender persons, the letter states, are on a “sacred journey” to become “whole” and should be protected from such efforts as much as anyone. First among the signatories is former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, one of our leading theologians and a wonderful Christian, whom I otherwise admire greatly and to whom I am gratefully obligated on many levels.