1st April 2005

Greens condemn Labour record on gay and lesbian rights

Greens have attacked the Government's "complete lack of political will to tackle homophobia", as Equality Bill reaches its second reading, still excluding Gay rights (i).

Martin Whiteside, the Green Party's Parliamentary candidate for Stroud and a District councillor said: "This Bill is about ensuring Gay and Lesbian people are second class citizens. The so-called "Equality" Bill, leaves the door open for Gays to be banned from hotels, discriminated against at university and by insurance companies. Moreover it even exempts public bodies from the duty to protect Gay and Lesbian people's rights."


Calls on David Drew to admit, like Michael Howard, that he was wrong on Section 28

Martin Whiteside said: "Labour have a poor record on gay issues. They only equalised the age of consent because a 16 year old was taking them to court, they fought in the European Court to retain the ban on gays and lesbians in the military, have prevented same-sex marriages, have failed to protect asylum seekers fleeing homophobic persecution and it took 5 years and a backbencher to repeal the absurd Section 28 (ii)."

Martin Whiteside said: "In the light of Michael Howard admitting two weeks ago that he was wrong to push Section 28 through Parliament (iii), will David Drew also admit that he was wrong to abstain from voting on this and voting against equalising the age of consent for gay sex?"

All Gloucestershire MPs have a poor record on bringing about equality of gay and lesbian people (iv). Only Diana Organ has consistently voted for equality, all the others have poor records.

Martin Whiteside concluded: "The Government is once again denying Gay and Lesbian people the opportunity to fully integrate into society. This is completely unacceptable. We are calling for nothing less than full social and legal equality for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community."

Notes to editors

(i) The Equality Bill is scheduled for its Second Reading in the House of Commons. Clause 47 of the Equality Bill prohibits harassment of a person because of their religious belief. and Clauses 49 and 51 ban discrimination against religious minorities in housing and education. Clause 48 bans discrimination in the provision of goods and services on the grounds of religion.  No mention of LGBT rights is made in these clauses.

(ii) Section 28 banned Council's from promoting homosexuality. However while Section 28 has been repealed its deeply damaging legacy lives on. More than four out of five teachers felt it was a barrier to honest discussion around sexual orientation, even though it didn’t apply to schools. Research now demonstrates that the unwillingness of many schools to tackle homophobic bullying is the reason that gay or lesbian 16 year olds with good GCSE results are less likely to stay in full-time education than their straight peers. Failing to tackle this issue is permanently damaging young people’s life chances.

(iii) Mr Howard said to 'Attitude' that on Section 28: "I've changed my mind. I think I was wrong. Yes. I was wrong." (see The Guardian 19th March 2005)

(iv) Stonewall, who campaign to put the case for equality on the mainstream political agenda, listed David Drew as placed a very poor equal 420th out of all MPs along with Liberal Democrat MP Nigel Jones.  Parmjit Dhanda was listed a poor equal 317th, Geoffrey Clifton Brown was nearly bottom of Gloucestershire MPs at 566th while Lawrence Robertson was bottom with 13 other Conservative MPs who consistently opposed all measures to bring about full equality for the lesbian and gay citizens they represent. Only Diana Organ was listed first equal with 117 MPs other MPs.

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