Last week we learned that David Cameron, the new leader of the Conservative Party wanted more Gay candidates for his party at the next general elections. Today it is the turn of Party Chairman, Francis Maude, former Foreign Office minister to come out in favour better inclusion of LGBT people in political life; stating that that it had been totally morally wrong for his party to be so much against gay right in the past two decades. He also suggested that the repressive culture supported by Tory politics in the 1980's probably contributed to the death of his own brother who succumbed to AIDS in 1993.
While most Tory MPs seem to have come to more humane views regarding gay rights (many of them voted in favour of the Civil Partnership Act), there are still a few dinosaurs in the party who will not recant. Norman, Lord Tebbit comes particularly to mind; a nasty piece of work who will blame anything on homosexuality (I remember hearing him on Radio 4 once blaming child obesity on gay people!). Bet he doesn't like what his party chairman just said.
The gay scene in London in the 1980s was quite aggressively promiscuous and I think if society generally and the government I served in had been more willing to recognise gay people then there would have been less of that problem.[...] A lot of people like my brother would not have succumbed to HIV and lost their lives.The Tory policies consisted mostly of blocking legislation that would improve the lot of LGBT people but the infamous Section 28 took an active step towards discrimination and probably facilitated the bullying of thousands of children along the years. The law was repealed in 2003 not without a Tory council (Kent) trying to prolongue the law in its schools for another year.
While most Tory MPs seem to have come to more humane views regarding gay rights (many of them voted in favour of the Civil Partnership Act), there are still a few dinosaurs in the party who will not recant. Norman, Lord Tebbit comes particularly to mind; a nasty piece of work who will blame anything on homosexuality (I remember hearing him on Radio 4 once blaming child obesity on gay people!). Bet he doesn't like what his party chairman just said.
Tags: conservatives, politics, Tories, gay, LGBT, GLBT, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, homophobia, gay rights.
I think we have to be fair to the Tories. They did mount an effective information campaign in relation to AIDS. And male homosexuality was decriminalised in Scotland and in Northern Ireland under a Tory government, although the latter followed a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. There is and was homophobia in other parties.
ReplyDeletePlease please can you tell us how on earth Norman Tebbit managed to blame childhood obesity on those nasty bad gays?
ReplyDeleteAs you surely know, Marie, homosexuals are the scourge of the modern world and their dastardly agenda is to destroy society as we know it. Giving them so much rights and attention means that social bonds loosen and as a result families become dysfunctional. Children are not cared for properly and given anything to eat and become obese...
ReplyDeleteEasy and logical!