Cringing at the bigots
May. 13th, 2010 01:48 pmTeresa May is perhaps the most glaringly horrendous cabinet choice of the new government since she’s supposed to be the protector of the marginalised from prejudice, but glancing over the other Tories who now lead the nation, she is hardly the only homophobe in power.
Far from it. I only glanced over the new cabinet and I cringed. None of these Tories have a decent voting record on GBLT rights. Of course, if we were looking at Tories with a decent GBLT record that would have been quite a challenge. But, with May as equalities minister it seems one of the things the Lib Dems were oh-so-quick to compromise on (along with most of their social agenda) our rights were quickly thrown out the window.
Ian Duncan Smith is the new Secretary for Work and Pensions. Of course, IDS was the Chair of the Centre for Social Justice that fought viciously against Lesbians being able to both be recorded as parents after IVF treatment and still fight the CURRENT PENDING LAW that would acknowledge 2 gay men as parents of a child conceived through surrogacy. He also supported denying Lesbians IVF treatment in the first place, equating Lesbian relationships with “broken homes.” Public whip puts him STRONGLY against equal rights for gays voting against, well, everything. Oh he was absent for the civil partner’s bill. Stonewall gave him a 14% voting record.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi is the new Tory party chairman. Her presence in the cabinet does relieve the overwhelming white-maleness of it all, but her homophobia is true to form. When she stood for the Tory seat in Dewsbury in 2005 she fought by spreading homophopbic leaflets. You see, scrapping section 28 meant us gays would be ‘propositioning’ school children and that we were peddling homophobia to 7 year olds. Yes, a paedophilia accusation
We have William Hague as the new Foreign Secretary who was a defender of Phillipa Stroud. When he was Tory leader not only did he push to preserve Section 28 but he sacked MP Shaun Woodward who refused to support such homophobia Stonewall gave him 29%voting record. He was absent for the equalising age of consent, Equality Act and civil partnership bills, voted against gay adoption AND voted against the repeal of Section 28
I am actually afraid to start digging, such a collection of people who have voted against every right we have ever fought for. I think it’s going to be damned depressing to examine this cabinet