Does Britain really want to project an anti-gay message on the world stage?
Does Britain actually want to project an anti-gay message on the world stage?
LGBT rights are under severe threat in large parts of the world. In parts of Africa and the Middle East they are practically non-existent, with gay and lesbian people facing execution or life imprisonment in states like Uganda.
A resurgent Russia under Vladimir Putin is also attempting to halt what it sees as the spread of American and Western “non-traditional values”. In a speech last December, Putin said that traditional family values were a bulwark against “so-called tolerance – genderless and infertile”.
As is so often the case with the promotion of ‘traditional values’, what is really desired is a wholesale roll-back of LGBT rights.
And yet it hasn’t always been easy for gay and lesbian people living in the UK either, with many of the battles won in the recent past still being fought by the Trans community.
Pride in the distance we’ve travelled on LGBT rights should, though, be a facet of the image Britain wishes to project to the outside world.
This why the prospect of Philip Hammond as foreign secretary is a concern.
Hammond was one of just four Cabinet ministers to vote against gay marriage last year and has previously been accused of likening gay marriage to incest. Last year Pink News reported that Hammond “told students in Surrey that allowing gay couples to marry would be like sanctioning ‘incest’ … When the students asked why, the MP believed the government should retain a ban on same-sex marriages, he responded by likening the current ban on equal marriage to ‘incest’, where it is illegal for two siblings to enter into wedlock.”
Hammond voted against the equalisation of the age of consent, the repeal of Section 28 and against allowing same-sex couples to adopt children.
He doesn’t appear to have had a significant change of heart, either. At the end of last year Hammond was still maintaining that the Gay Marriage Bill was “damaging” for the Conservative Party and that he was “shocked” by the legislation.
This isn’t the sort of image Britain wants to project to the world at the best of times. When you have a resurgent global anti-LGBT movement grouped around a powerful ally in Russia it’s a serious cause for concern.
We’ve heard a lot from the government recently about the promotion of ‘British values’. One of these values is, presumably, the right LGBT people now have to live the life they want to live – regardless of ‘traditional’ opinion.
But for values to have any meaning they must be universally applicable. If you believe a white Englishman should have a particular right then you cannot deny the same right to a Black African.
The government has made significant progress in the area of LGBT rights for British citizens, yet it thinks it appropriate to appoint a man who has always been hostile toward them as its de facto spokesperson aborad. This at a time when LGBT rights are severely threatened in a significant proportion of the globe.
It may indeed be time for a fresh face at the foreign office, but forgive me if I’m not over the moon about the ascendance of Philip Hammond.
23 Responses to “Do we really need a foreign secretary with an anti-gay rights record?”
John
So, again, what’s your point? That all is well?
That equality and freedom mean different things to different people is not new. Whole branches of philosphical thought have been founded on this simple fact and were we trying to achieve Utopia it would be a relevant point.
But we aren’t
We are simply trying to make a system of equal oppurtunity. A society where the nature of your birth doesn’t restrict or broaden your future.
As such, a minister who is homophobic represents a threat of regression when we still have a very long road ahead of us.
DebsnSoots
Equality, like any other construct, is more complicated the more you think about it – but the essence of it – that everyone should be treated equally – is simple enough. To me support (or not) for gay marriage is one of those concepts which defines equality. If you are for gay marriage you are for equality because you believe that couples who love each other should be able to make the same legal commitment to one another (and get the same legal benefits and recognition). If you are against it then you are against equality – no matter what your reasons – religious, ‘moral’, whatever. The bottom line is that you do not believe in the equal treatment of all human beings.
Of course I agree that there are other subjects upon which the notion of equality is not as clear cut. Wealth is a good example. As a Socialist I believe in equal pay as a principle – but I realise that it is not so simple because whilst it is easy enough to argue that e.g. race and gender should not be a barrier to equal pay there are other things like ability and effort which are more arguable.
The bottom line, for me, is that whilst we can debate these subjects – hopefully from a stance of making things as equal and fair as possible – someone who is clearly against equality on the more clear cut issues cannot be said to be embracing the notion of equality, and is not fit to be in government.
sarntcrip
THE tory party in government always represents regression to a time perceived as halcyon when in fact it was nothing of the kind they always want to go back not forward they always cut rather than invest any following government has to repair the damage, then is harangued for expenditure
sarntcrip
these days decent compassionate people are a minority, no sign of any in the cabinet now or whenever the tories have power majority or not, currently not
sarntcrip
where are the wheelchair users in cabinet?