"Conversion" deals with a hot topic: first amendment rights regarding religious beliefs, that some six years after the show aired is back in the news given recent ultra-conservative decisions by the U. S. Supreme Court.
This is not a case of designing websites or baking wedding cakes, but instead deals with rape and homosexuality, and SVU's writers have fashioned details which put the underlying issues into bold relief.
The accused rapist and female victim are both members of a church, and the rape to them is anything but -they term it "curative intercourse" -the rapist claiming he was saving his girlfriend from the devils with her that caused her to have a lesbian friend, and that though she said "No" and resisted he was not raping her but actually converting her away from lesbianism. Backing him up was the church reverend, the real culprit here in his indoctrinating his parishioners to believe this hogwash and act upon it.
The way the case develops including testimony in court is riviting because even though the viewer can obviously see that the cops are right and the rapist and his reverend are delusional (and dangerous) the jury can easily be swayed to sympathize with the religious folks' sincerity in what they believe. The fact that the law in New York state regarding consent clearly supports the state's case doesn't matter -it's what the jury decides.
Ultimately our intrepid SVU team gets to the heart of the matter in exposing the reverend's bad motives and his hold over his boys, Segment is not preachy, but serves as a warning of how the First Amendment (and also quite clearly the over-broad Supreme Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment too) lead to abuse in false claims of religious liberty. For this particular case, the current passing of hundreds of laws abridging or denying LGBTQ citizens' rights is directly relevant.
This is not a case of designing websites or baking wedding cakes, but instead deals with rape and homosexuality, and SVU's writers have fashioned details which put the underlying issues into bold relief.
The accused rapist and female victim are both members of a church, and the rape to them is anything but -they term it "curative intercourse" -the rapist claiming he was saving his girlfriend from the devils with her that caused her to have a lesbian friend, and that though she said "No" and resisted he was not raping her but actually converting her away from lesbianism. Backing him up was the church reverend, the real culprit here in his indoctrinating his parishioners to believe this hogwash and act upon it.
The way the case develops including testimony in court is riviting because even though the viewer can obviously see that the cops are right and the rapist and his reverend are delusional (and dangerous) the jury can easily be swayed to sympathize with the religious folks' sincerity in what they believe. The fact that the law in New York state regarding consent clearly supports the state's case doesn't matter -it's what the jury decides.
Ultimately our intrepid SVU team gets to the heart of the matter in exposing the reverend's bad motives and his hold over his boys, Segment is not preachy, but serves as a warning of how the First Amendment (and also quite clearly the over-broad Supreme Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment too) lead to abuse in false claims of religious liberty. For this particular case, the current passing of hundreds of laws abridging or denying LGBTQ citizens' rights is directly relevant.