07/06/2009
Conservatives to Gay Britons: Are You Being Served By Labour?
Ahead of this past weekend's Pride march in London, a political war of words. First, the Labour Party's Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw observed that "a deep strain of homophobia" still exists in the rival Tories. Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant backed him up, stating, "If gays vote Tory, they will rue the day very soon."
These remarks followed an official apology by the Conservatives for implementing the anti-gay Section 28 in the 1980s. "I am sorry for Section 28. We got it wrong. It was an emotional issue. I hope you can forgive us," said Conservative leader David Cameron (pictured), who voted to keep the measure as recently as 2003. But his words were deemed "25 years too late" by Leader of the Commons Harriet Harman.
These remarks followed an official apology by the Conservatives for implementing the anti-gay Section 28 in the 1980s. "I am sorry for Section 28. We got it wrong. It was an emotional issue. I hope you can forgive us," said Conservative leader David Cameron (pictured), who voted to keep the measure as recently as 2003. But his words were deemed "25 years too late" by Leader of the Commons Harriet Harman.
Apparently, apology not accepted.
Striking back, Alan Duncan, a gay Tory Cabinet Minister accused Bradshaw and Bryant of "stirring up hatred and division."
More from the Times: "[T]he next generation of Tory MPs will be more socially liberal. In a survey of 133 prospective parliamentary candidates in winnable seats for the ConservativeHome website, 62 per cent said that same-sex couples should be given the same benefits as married couples, while 31 per cent disagreed."
"Cameron's apology on Section 28 is HUGE news," according to Boyz Magazine Managing Director David Bridle. "Gay people I know were delighted. This is a fantastic way for him to start rebuilding relations with the gay community."
With a large number of gay respondents saying they would vote Conservative in a recent poll, it would 
seem the current state of the Conservatives is one possible future for the Republican party in the U.S.—jettison the religious right, become more socially liberal and attract a broader spectrum of moderates, including quite a few gay people with short memories or whose priorities never included gay causes in the first place...or whose only liberal position is gay rights.
In related news, PM Gordon Brown (Labour) didn't attend the London march, instead sending his wife (pictured).
Posted 7:19 AM EST by Matthew Rettenmund in Gordon Brown, Great Britain | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
UK Conservatives are the equivalent of US liberals, pretty much. Obama has more in common with Cameron than with Brown.
Posted by: DD | Jul 6, 2009 9:45:41 AM
I was at London Pride. I don't know where these gays who are voting tory are, but they certainly aren't in London. When a tory spokesman got on stage, he got booed off as well as a few beer bottles thrown at him. I only wish we had been allowed glass bottles instead of plastic ones near the main stage.
Posted by: Marc | Jul 6, 2009 9:58:48 AM
Well on the one hand the "a deep strain of homophobia" and "if gays vote Tory, they will rue the day very soon" comments ring completely true, but on the other hand both leading parties are comprehensively dull and colorless these days.
It has been many years since I had any cause to actually learn the names of cabinet & shadow cabinet politicians, and when they do hit the radar it is only for their personal lives and nothing so exciting/divisive as actually holding a view on anything.
That said; Conservatives remain more religulous than Labor, so no matter what words they throw out there (and they'll be far far short of marriage) I'll only be voting Labour* next year and hoping for a coalition with the Lib Dems.
*Out here in the sticks the only General Election candidates we get our Labour and Conservative, with the chance of a hate-party fringer.
Posted by: PM | Jul 6, 2009 10:12:19 AM
".....the Conservatives is one possible future for the Republican party in the U.S.—jettison the religious right, become more socially liberal and attract a broader spectrum of moderates......"
There is no comparison within the repub party in any form
The better comparison is Britt Conservatives are like our own blue dog dems
Posted by: jimmyboyo | Jul 6, 2009 10:22:17 AM
Let's not get carried away. The Repuglican party is vastly different than the UK Tories. The Tories aren't like the democrats in the US... they're probably even more liberal than the national party.
Posted by: Ryan | Jul 6, 2009 11:13:50 AM
The Labour Party is hardly the champion of gay equality. They've had an unassailable majority for 12 years, yet dare not mention gay marriage rights. Gordon Brown is a clown who will say all the right things, but when it comes down to it will never act on full equality because that would endanger the support of Catholic/Muslim voters who are Labour's only hope of maintaining any share of power in the future. Meanwhile, Labour relies on uninformed voters (see Marc above) who vote for Labour out of habit or in Pavlovian response to identity politics flag-waving, hoping that enough people will ignore the fact that they're bankrupting the whole country through self-interested profiteering and inept mismanagement.
Posted by: DaveB | Jul 6, 2009 11:49:35 AM
Gordon Brown and Labour are going down! I can't wait.
Posted by: LincolnLounger | Jul 6, 2009 12:35:24 PM
The poll was carried out by Jake, a London-based gay internet portal for professionals - so it's not that surprising that so many of them voted Tory.
I doubt that it would be the same picture if you looked at a proper cross-section of gay British people. As far as I'm concerned, the Tory party was nasty then, is nasty now, and will be nasty always. Cameron's apology would be more believable if his party weren't trying to crony up to extremely far-right groups in Europe. Too little, too late...
Posted by: Lubin Odana | Jul 6, 2009 5:15:55 PM