Gscene News Archive

Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has accused Gordon Brown of claiming to support equality for gays and lesbians while backing homophobic discrimination.

Tatchell was responding to a statement of support from Gordon Brown to the LGBT community ahead of this year's Pride in which the Prime Minister said:
"We (the Labour government) won't ever give up on the fight for equality - we are marching with you every step of the way."

"He claims to support gay equality but his government actually endorses some aspects of homophobic discrimination," said Peter Tatchell of the LGBT human rights group, OutRage! "It supports the ban on same-sex marriage. Civil partnerships are not equality. They are a form of sexual apartheid, with different laws for gay and straight couples. Gay and bisexual men are prohibited from donating blood, even if they always practice safe sex and have tested HIV-negative. Successive Labour Home Secretaries have given visas and work permits to reggae singers who incite the murder of gay people. Such incitement is a serious criminal offence. The government's current Equality Bill is supposed to ensure equal rights for everyone but it specifically denies lesbians and gays protection against harassment. Labour's many commendable gay law reforms are no excuse for its stonewalling on the abolition of these remaining aspects of homophobic discrimination."

"The Prime Minister will host a reception at Downing Street for LGBT rights campaigners and the pink press on the morning of Pride London. Those invited are mostly - not entirely - tame apologists for New Labour. Critics of the government's record, like myself, are not invited. The same selective invitation criteria was applied when Gordon Brown hosted a Downing Street reception for LGBT campaigners in March. An insider tipped me off that my name had been removed from the invite list, at Gordon Brown's personal request. He was apparently still angry that I had heckled him over his government's erosion of civil liberties, when he opened the Taking Liberties exhibition at the British Library late last year.

"It doesn't matter to me that I haven't been invited. What angers me is the principle - the way the Prime Minister invites and fetes mostly tame pro-Labour loyalists in the LGBT community. It is a manipulative tactic by an insecure government that knows its record on LGBT human rights is not as glorious as it claims.

"Instead of remedying the remaining issues of homophobic discrimination, Gordon Brown seems more interested in isolating and excluding LGBT voices who continue to insist on full LGBT human rights," said Mr Tatchell.

A spokesman for Number 10 said,
"This government is very proud of its enviable record on LGBT rights since the late 1990s, often in the face of fierce opposition. What matters is not who was or who was not invited to a reception in Downing Street but what we have already done, such as same sex couples getting immigration rights, repeal of armed forces ban, an equal age of consent, lesbian and gay couples being allowed to adopt, repeal of Section 28, employment equality, civil partnerships introduced, discrimination outside the workplace banned and guidance to schools on homophobic bullying published. And last year the UK signed a United Nations Declaration calling for an end to laws that make homosexuality illegal. More recently, we have also made incitement to homophobic hate a crime. No one should underestimate this governments commitment on equality."

For more information about Peter Tatchell view:
www.petertatchell.net