The Tories' and UKIP have failed to stand up for LGBT people
This week, in a landmark vote, the European Parliament demanded that the EU adopt a strategy to combat homophobia and promote LGBT rights. Yet Conservative and UKIP MEPs voted against these calls, with one Tory MEP claiming they amounted to “social engineering” from Brussels.
This is a fundamental misreading of the facts. EU anti-discrimination laws don’t dictate to individual governments how they should organise their societies. Instead they put in place minimum standards across the board that protect LGBT people from abuse and discrimination, including British citizens travelling abroad in the EU.
As we all know, the fight against homophobia in Britain is far from over. Yet in many parts of Europe it has scarcely begun. In 2013 a survey found that a quarter of gay people in the EU had suffered homophobic attacks. In a number of Eastern European countries the situation for LGBTI communities remains bleak; Latvia has introduced a series of anti-gay propaganda laws and in Hungary children as young as 10 were recently being taught that homosexuality is a ‘deadly sin’.
It is in this context that EU legislation defending LGBT rights is particularly important. EU laws already prevent discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in the area of access to employment, meaning LGBT people cannot be discriminated against when applying for a job.
But a stronger law, blocked by a number of EU national governments since 2008, would extend these protections to education and the buying of goods and services. This week the European Parliament issued a strong demand that this legislation should be put back on the table and called for a coordinated EU strategy to tackle homophobia.
For UKIP to oppose these calls is not surprising. They are hardly known as a party that espouses tolerance, openness and international cooperation.
Yet the Tories’ failure to stand up for EU legislation that protects LGBT people from discrimination is more worrying. It is time for them to acknowledge that this is not about pesky interference from Brussels, it is about defending the rights of millions of LGBT people across Europe who face fear and discrimination.
Catherine Bearder is a Liberal Democrat MEP
21 Responses to “Tories and UKIP vote against EU strategy on LGBT rights”
TheCitizenAct
I agree. It’s only a shame so many left-wing commentators fail to stand up for women in the face of the barbaric and antiquated Islamic value system. For example, pre GE 2015, Harriet Harman declared it would be rude to interfere with a Labour Party event segregated along gender lines to appeal to Muslim voters. After Charlie Hebdo, there was a whole country of progressive journalists just ready and waiting to co-opt the narrative and tell us Islam is a ‘religion of peace’, while highlighting the crimes perpetrated by those at Charlie Hebdo (apparently they were being provocative).
As for same-sex marriage, I think it should be legalised. However I also deplore the hypocrisy – if the morality is ‘people should be free to marry whoever they choose’, then that same morality must extend to incestuous relationships, polygamy, etc. The progressives who label all those who take moral opposition to homosexuality as ‘bigots’ would never extend shaming tactics to anyone who was to declare incestuous marriage to be morally repugnant. Really, their bigotry is only slightly ‘superior’ (and far more hypocritical).