Theresa May’s new electoral reliance on the most socially conservative party in Britain for political life support comes after an election which saw a record number of gay MPs elected to the House of Commons.
The Democratic Unionist Party, whose 10 MPs are needed to give May a majority in the House of Commons, opposes gay marriage and has repeatedly overruled political opponents Sinn Fein to ensure that Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where gay marriage is illegal.
Forty-five of the 650 MPs elected on June 8 have identified themselves as gay and one of the stars of the election, the Conservative leader in Scotland Ruth Davidson is planning to marry her girlfriend. That is six more than the number of openly gay members of the previous parliament, and the new total has been described by a US academic as a world record.
The 19 gay Tory MPs include the outgoing Cabinet Secretary for Education, Justine Greening, Foreign Minister Alan Duncan and former assistant minister Crispin Blunt, who chairs the House of Commons foreign affairs committee and last year told parliament that he uses poppers, a form of party drug and muscle relaxant that is popular among gay men.
The Labour Party’s gay MPs include former leadership contender Angela Eagle, Chief Whip Nick Brown, and Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffith. The Scottish National Party has the highest proportion of gays, with seven of its 35 MPs identifying themselves as gay or bisexual. The Scottish Assembly has the remarkable position of both the Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson and the Labour leader Kezia Dugdale being lesbians.
Davidson’s popularity in Scotland was seen to play a major part in her party expanding in the general election from having just one MP in Scotland to 13, a success which was even more crucial for Theresa May than the support of the 10 MPs from the DUP, which was founded by conservative Protestant church leaders.
Davidson has quickly demanded that the Prime Minister not make any concessions on gay rights as part of her horse-trading with the DUP for its support, insisting that the Conservative Party should continue to see more gay rights in Northern Ireland.Davidson campaigned several times with her partner Jen Wilson during the election campaign and responded to news of the DUP’s new role propping up her party by tweeting a link to a speech she has given backing gay marriage.
“As a Protestant Unionist about to marry an Irish Catholic, here’s the Amnesty Pride lecture I gave in Belfast,” Davidson tweeted.She later said that the PM had assured her that gay rights would not be undermined by any agreement with the DUP. “I was fairly straightforward with her and I told her that there were a number of things that count to me more than party,” Davudson said.”One of them is country, one of the others is LGBTI rights.”
“What’s important is to ensure we try to help where possible to advance these rights in Northern Ireland, while making sure there is absolutely no idea of any sort of rollback here, and these are assurances I sought and received.”
Ian Paisley Jr, one of the DUP’s 10 MPs and son of the party’s founder Reverend Ian Paisley, has called homosexuality “immoral, offensive and obnoxious”. His fellow MP David Simpson has summed up his own opposition to gay rights by saying that “in the Garden of Eden it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
The 45 gay MPs elected in June 8 was called a “global record” by Andrew Reynolds, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who compiled the data.
by Peter Wilson
The post Gay UK: Look Who Theresa Brought Home appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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