Theresa May not believe in equality for gays

We were intrigued to discover on the invaluable TheyWorkForYou website that new Equality Minister Theresa May "voted moderately against equal gay rights." Equality regardless of gender, race, sexual preference/identity is, after all, generally considered to be a good thing these days by all but a limited number of morons, and so you'd probably be safe in assuming that the Government would as a result wish to promote such a worthy ideal. You might therefore also assume that anyone thought suitable to the post of Equality Minister would vote very strongly for equal gay rights, wouldn't you?

Theresa May MP, Equality Minister - seems to not like gay people very much.

(image from Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence)

Our interest was piqued, so we ran a quick Google search using the request "Theresa May gay lesbian equality" and very rapidly found a document published by Pink News which lists some revealing facts on May - like, for example, the time in 1998 when she voted against equalising the age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals. Then, in 2000, she voted against moves to repeal the notorious Section 28 (commonly known as Clause 28), a piece of legislation that banned local authorities from "promoting homosexuality" and effectively left health centres unable to provide sexual health advice to gays and made teachers afraid to prevent homophobic bullying of school children.

Mrs. May was voting in a way rather at odds with equality again in both 2001 and 2002, when she supported measures aimed at preventing same-sex couples from adopting children. There was a brief moment in 2004 when it looked like she might have given up her prejudice as - in common with the majority of the Conservative front bench - she voted in favour of civil partnerships, known to many as gay marriages; but it's worth noting that over the last few years the Tories have been attempting to attract the so-called pink vote and will say or do just about anything if they think someone will cross their box at the ballot, as has been the case with Prime Minister David Cameron when he apologised for Section 28 last year (this despite the fact that his record when it comes to gay rights isn't a great deal better than May's - he also voted against repealing Section 28). However, in the very same year, she didn't vote in any of the four votes that eventually led to the adoption of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which allows those who have undergone gender correction surgery to legally change the gender recorded on their birth certificate and other documents.

In 2008, she voted in favour of an ultimately defeated bill which would have required couples seeking IVF treatment to provide a male role model - in other words, preventing lesbian couples from having children by this method (Cameron voted in favour of that one too, by the way).

No mainstream political party would discriminate against Jewish, black or Asian MPs in this day and age, but one does have to wonder - in view of the dubious voting records of both their leader and Equality Minister, as well as the decision to join the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the EU, thus allying themselves with the openly homophobic Polish Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc party which we have written about on this blog at some length - if the Conservatives are not yet as comfortable with homosexuality. Last week's election saw ten new Conservative homosexuals take seats in the Commons, but they may find they are merely tolerated in order to provide the illusion of equality rather than welcomed with open arms.

If you think Theresa May is unsuited to her new post, have a look at Sack Theresa - Calling for the resignation of the Women and Equalities Minister.

Immigrants do not jump social housing queues, says EHRC

An Equality and Human Rights Commission study has produced evidence that immigrants in Britain cannot "jump ahead" of residents born here in queues for council or social housing, a widely-held belief much played upon by the British National Party. Once settled here - which means once they are just as liable for taxation as anyone else and thus entitled to the same assistance - no greater percentage of council housing is occupied by immigrants than by any other group.

Immigrants from all around the world have long been contributing to British society and culture.
Royalty-free image by Indeed, found at gettyimages.co.uk.

At present, housing of this type is awarded entirely according to the needs of the applicant and immigrants are not able to claim an occupancy until five years after they have settled here. John Healey, the Housing Minister, said that he believes the miconception that certain groups are favoured and as such have a better chance of finding accomodation is "largely a problem of perception" and that he wanted to "nail the myth" that certain groups are losing out. The commission's study discovered that just 11% of those immigrants to have arrived in Britain - all of them asylum seekers, amongst the most needy people in society - are given help with housing.

Most interestingly, once they have been here for five years and become eligible for help, a mere one in six live in council/social housing - precisely the same amount as people born here. This provides more proof that the BNP's policies are designed soley to pander to common fears, rather than to recognise and solve any real problems in society, in a blatantly cynical attempt to woo voters.

The worry, which may be unfounded but is nevertheless very real, that immigrants are unintentionally preventing native British people from receiving the help they need has been impossible to miss. Certain sections of the media - especially certain tabloid newspapers - have whipped what was once a vaguely-felt worry into fully-fledged racism by printing highly-questionable stories which have resulted in violence such as the shocking attacks on Romanians in Northern Ireland, attacks that deliberately endangered the lives of children.

The Government are to be held at least partially to blame for this, as they have done little or nothing to prevent the escalation of a misconstrued concern into racial, xenophobic and nationalistic hatred other than using the issue as a cheap way to score points and voters as each party claimed to be the only one who will do an ill-defined "something about it." Had they have addressed the public's concerns previously, we would now have a wealth of evidence suggesting that immigrants contribute to and are a positive aspect in society (as an example, while British Asians make up just 4% of the UK's populace, they contribute 6% of the nation's GDP) rather than a drain upon it and its resources, instead of being in the situation within which we now find ourselves where otherwise normal, once-tolerant citizens are now so worried that they are willing to vote for an extremist, neo-fascist organisation that cynically takes advantage of their fears and promises to get rid of the immigrant bogeyman.

BNP may be forced to change admission rules

The British National Party may face a legal injunction over its descriminatory membership policy, which allows only white people of certain ethnic backgrounds to join. The far right organisation, which won two seats in the European Parliament in the recent election, has been contacted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), informing it that changes to bring the admission policy in line with British racial equality law must be made by the 20th of July this year.

Are you happy to see our nation's flag hijacked by fascists?

"There is no place for a political party in this country to have an apartheid constitution and the equality bill will prevent this from being the case," says Harriet Harman MP, leader of the House of Commons. The equality bill aims to consolidate all of Britain's anti-racism laws into one single piece of legislation.

Currently, if you want to join the BNP, you must be white and of European stock. According to the EHRC, "This exclusion is contrary to the Race Relations Act which the party is legally obliged to comply with. The Commission therefore thinks that the BNP may have acted, and be acting, illegally."

But here's an idea: if they are forced to change this policy, how about all those of us who are opposed to them - be we black, white, Asian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, humanist, left wing, right wing libertarian, democrat, anarchist, anti-racist, anti-fascist, native, immigrant or merely a true patriot, all of us with any reason to take issue with what the party stands for and those who simply oppose their policies - join up?

Joining the BNP will cost £30, £15 if you are a senior citizen, unwaged or a student, per year. After your second year of probationary membership, you will be made a voting member, giving you the right to attend the Annual Conference and to vote in decisions that concern party policy and future. We'd need to do this just after elections, so that our memberships fees couldn't be used to help them win more votes. Once we've been accepted, we sit tight, not becoming involved in their activities...apparent silent supporters.

And then, once there's enough of us who have been members for the two years to outnumber those members that really do support them, we all go to the Annual Conference and take over, putting into place a new manifesto prior to disbanding the party?

Anyone know enough about law to comment the feasibility of such a plan? Could it be done, if enough of us tried? Who would be willing to try?