Pastor’s wife claims defamation in gay conversion therapy report

The wife of evangelical pastor Gordon-John Manché, Mariella Blackman, has filed a libel suit against The Sunday Times over a report claiming to carry statements from patients that she carried out gay reparation therapy on them.

Blackman, a former president of the Malta Union of Professional Psychologists, denied reports that she had dub gay people as “disgusting”, or that she carried out reparative treatment on gay patients.

“The allegations are a gross calumny and absurdity,” she said in her libel suit.

She added that the article was intended as an attack on her husband, who runs the River of Love ministry and whose views on homosexuality have attracted notoriety over the years.

“Over the years there have been various attacks on my husband by the gay rights community, attacks which had done nothing to stop the flourishing of the Christian community,” Blackman said.

She also said that the effects of the article had been felt on social media, citing an example a Facebook post by MCST chairman Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, a former MP, who called on the Medical Council to investigate Blackman on the allegations.