David Davies, the Tory MP, is opposed to gay marriage – but is very keen to stress that he is not a homophobe. The only trouble is that every time he tries to clear the matter up, he inadvertantly makes it worse.
For example, after he was criticised for telling BBC Wales that “most parents would prefer their children not be gay”, he responded by saying that he couldn’t be a homophobe because he had once punched a gay man.
Once fought gay boxer. Respect & like.trained with after bout so not bigoted. actvists calm down- listen to other views youtu.be/-3T2teJaVlA
— David Davies (@davidtcdavies) December 9, 2012
Today, he is interviewed in the Guardian, and comes across as a man genuinely, painedly, trying to make his case, but never quite managing it. Mostly because he seems obsessed with Erasure.
For example, Davies worries about sex education including the mechanics of gay sex. Why?
When Davies was 16, a popular school friend had announced he was gay. Davies ran into him again at 19, “And it turned out the guy had got engaged. To a woman! And he absolutely didn’t want to talk about what had gone on between the age of 16 and 19. He’d started coming down to the pub at 16 with, you know, splits in his jeans, and started buying Erasure albums, and all the rest of it – and three years later he’s suddenly horrified by the whole thing!
“I suppose what I’m trying to say, in a very clumsy way, which will again probably cause offence, is that some people might be going through a bit of a funny phase between the age of 15 and 20 when they’re not sure.”
When the interviewer, Decca Aitkenhead, says that “no amount of familiarity with homosexual mechanics would have turned my 10-year-old self into a lesbian”, he replies:
“But you’re a lady, you’re a woman, so you wouldn’t have felt quite the same way. I mean, at school the girls all went out and bought Erasure without any issue.”
But things are changing, and David Davies is happy about that:
“I make no bones about it, I’m a product of my upbringing and of the time I was brought up, so I’m not going to pretend not to be. It’s not like I was brought up in San Francisco or somewhere like that.
“But I’m changing. This is going to sound quite appalling, but nobody in my circle of friends in 1986 would have admitted liking Erasure, or would have been seen dead going out and buying a Boy George CD. Now I’ve got Boy George’s greatest hits, and I love it!”
In the earnestness with which he tries to engage with the issues – despite his obvious discomfort – Davies is beginning to remind me of Harry Enfield’s dad with a gay son.
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