Alan Duncan, the first openly gay Conservative MP, has branded the Liberal Democrats “shits” after the party launched an attack on the Conservatives’ failure to support gay rights.
Lib Dems equality spokesperson Jo Swinson last week released a compilation of members of the shadow Cabinet’s voting history since 1998.
The figures, disputed by the Tories, suggest that 80 percent of the 25-member team has voted against major items of gay rights legislation in that period. Ninety percent of those eligible voted against the equalisation of the age of consent and 85 percent voted against the repeal of Section 28.
Among Tory MPs, 85 percent failed to vote for regulations passed this year outlawing the denial of goods and services based on sexuality and 54 percent polled this year opposed equal rights for homosexual couples.
“Despite David Cameron’s façade of “liberal” conservatism, his voting record, the voting record of the Shadow Cabinet that he appointed, and the views held amongst his party paint a very different picture,” it says.
But Duncan, shadow secretary for business, enterprise and regulatory reform, told newstatesman.com that the Liberal Democrats’ criticism was out-dated and claimed the Tories were in step with a wider consensus on gay rights issues.
He also said it was unwise for the Lib Dems, whose president, Simon Hughes, ran successfully for parliament in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election against Peter Tatchell as “the straight choice”, to criticise the Tories over gay rights.
“There was never such a disgusting and contemptible election campaign as that waged by Simon Hughes against Peter Tatchell, so it’s very unwise for the Lib Dems to rake this sort of thing up. They were the last party in Parliament to have an openly gay member within their ranks. They should scurry away and eat their words.
“As Matthew Parris argues, at last, the agenda is largely complete. Homosexuality should be out of politics and just included in daily life. If they want to re-politicise a settled consensus, I have complete contempt for them.”
“Historically, the Conservatives have been behind the curve, whilst Tony Blair was very good on the equality agenda. But a piece of research like this isn’t constructive. It just makes the Liberal Democrats look like shits. You can quote me on that.”
Despite his recent support for the Sexual Orientation Discrimination legislation and civil partnerships, Tory leader Cameron has a chequered record on gay rights, having voted against gay adoption under a three-line whip.
But a Tory spokesman said Cameron had abstained from a whipped vote under former leader Iain Duncan Smith on the repeal of Section 28 and supported gay adoption. In fact, Cameron voted against the repeal of Section 28 passing to a second reading before abstaining on the second reading.
In 2000 as candidate for Witney he told a local paper that the Blair government “continues to be obsessed with their ‘fringe’ agenda, including deeply unpopular moves like repealing Section 28 and allowing the promotion of homosexuality in schools,” and that “Blair has moved heaven and earth to allow the promotion of homosexuality in schools”.
But a spokesman tried to brush off the comments. “It was only as a candidate. If you know how politics works you’ll see why being a candidate is different to being an MP,” he said.
“The Conservative Party has campaigned for equal treatment for the gay community and on the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality we should be celebrating what has been achieved since, not playing petty politics with this issue.”
But Swinson claimed the appointment of shadow cabinet members such as Eric Pickles, the new shadow secretary of state for communities and local government who had previously failed to back a single piece of gay rights legislation, called Cameron’s judgment into question.
“Pickle’s appointment is deeply concerning,” said Swinson. “It’s a question of looking at voting records. We have had a lot rhetoric about change. I think it’s important at this stage to look at their extremely poor record.”
Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said the Conservative Party was “riddled with old ideas”: “In 18 years in office the Conservatives did next to nothing to advance the cause of gay rights in Britain.”
Veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “It’s good that David Cameron in recent years has had a Damascene conversion to gay equality. I hope he’s sincere.
“But quite clearly most members of his shadow cabinet and most backbench MPs continue to support anti-gay discrimination. The lesbian and gay community would have good reason to fear the return to power of a Conservative government. Most of their MPs want to keep lesbians and gays as second class citizens.”
Tatchell also criticised last month’s Tory appointment of ‘modernising’ Muslim lawyer Sayeeda Warsi to the position of Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion.
In literature distributed during her 2005 council election campaign she accused Labour of “allowing school children to be propositioned for homosexual relationships”, and denounced the “promotion of homosexuality that undermines family life”.
Tatchell said Warsi was unfit to serve in the shadow cabinet: “She fought an immensely homophobic campaign in the last general election in which she made false claims about government gay rights policy. It beggars belief that David Cameron has appointed such a bigoted woman. Her views on gay rights echo the homophobia of Nick Griffin of the BNP.”
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