News broke over the weekend that Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling had said people who run Bed and Breakfasts should be allowed to refuse business to gay and lesbian couples!! I am utterly appalled at this prejudice.Photo: From 'Make My Own Cameron Poster - see here
Allowing certain business-owners to discriminate based on sexual orientation opens the door to discrimination based on race, religion, country of origin, and anything else - and to the sort of inequality that surely we have said goodbye to forever in this country?
Will Tories stand by or condemn this intolerance? Will the man who might be our next prime minister sit by and silently accept this sort of bigotry, or will he reassure the people of Britain that he means what he says that his party has changed?
Sign the petition to David Cameron, telling him to sack Chris Grayling and clearly state his party's stance on discrimination: http://action.compassonline.org.uk/grayling
See also Johann Hari, who spoke at this years Green party conference, on how the Tory party hasn't changed - see here.
4 comments:
Anastasia Beaumont-Bott, the first chairman of the Tories' gay rights group, LGBTory - that's right, the founder - defected from the Conservative Party this week. She told the Independent:
"I became disillusioned after meeting one too many people in that party who were not like what the leader was saying the party was about. If you make a comment like [those made by Mr Grayling], you should be out. This isn't a question of party lines - it is disgusting. I don't like doing this to Mr Cameron. I like him, but the insides of his party are not what the people are led to believe."
Cameron is no better than Grayling:
April 8, 2010
CAMERON “DOESN’T UNDERSTAND EUROPE”, SAYS GREEN MEP
Jean Lambert, the Green MEP for London, says Conservative leader David
Cameron “doesn’t understand the importance of the European Union”, following
comments he made regarding gay rights in a recent interview [1].
Speaking on a pre-recorded special general election edition of BBC
Parliament’s EU politics programme, The Record: Europe [2], Jean expressed
concern that Cameron had not realised that it mattered how Tory MEPs voted
on the issue of a proposed homophobic law in Lithuania in terms of his
Party’s political positioning, seeming to regard the European Parliament as
a political outpost.
During a discussion about renegotiating terms of the Lisbon Treaty, Jean,
who is a member of the European Parliament's cross-party Intergroup on LGBT
rights and was a co-signatory to a resolution condemning the proposed
legislation in Lithuania, told presenter Shirin Wheeler:
“It’s very difficult for one leader (to renegotiate terms) who I must say
seems to me to be on a very steep learning curve about the importance of the
European Union. I’m not yet convinced that David Cameron really understands
the European Union, just look at the interview he did with the Gay Times, he
doesn’t understand the EU’s importance… the European Parliament now has
powers.”
Summing up the Green Party’s top priority in Europe for the next Government,
Jean, concluded:
“The really big issue facing the entire world, not just Europe, is the issue
of climate change. And therefore if we are really going to switch to a low
carbon economy, which is what the European Union says it wants to do, we
have to shift things like the regional funds, we have to move the European
Union budget in that direction and that means a lot of thinking about our
economic priorities but it’s certainly going to deliver a lot more jobs than
we are seeing in this current economy.”
Note to Editors
[1] The interview was conducted for Gay Times magazine and can be viewed
here:
http://www.youtube.com/gaytimeschannel
[2] The episode of The Record: Europe will be broadcast on BBC World News,
BBC News Channel and BBC Parliament on the weekend of April 10 and 11.
Claude Moraes (Labour), Timothy Kirkhope (Conservative), Sarah Ludford
(Liberal Democrat) and William, Earl of Dartmouth (UKIP) were the other MEPs
on the studio panel.
Jean Lambert is one of eight MEPs representing London and one of two UK
Green representatives in the European Parliament. Jean was first elected
Green Party Member of the European Parliament for London in the 1999
European elections and was re-elected in 2004 and 2009.
LGBT issues are a week spot for David Drew MP locally....
See: http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpid=1850&dmp=826
David Drew abstained from voting on repealling Section 28 and voted against equalising the age of consent for gay sex...
See Cameron being interviewed by Gay Times:
http://sameoldtories.co.uk/index.php/sameold/entry/video-david-cameron-forgets-his-lines/?utm_source=20101404email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email
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