Chris Bryant: 'I don't thk of myself as a gay MP' | Polics | The Guardian

Contents:

• CAPTA UNRPANTS MP CHRIS BRYANT WHO POSED ON GAY DATG SE REWARD WH PROMOTN JUNR RANKS RHUFFLE
• CHRIS BRYANT: 'I DON'T THK OF MYSELF AS A GAY MP'
• LABOUR’S CHRIS BRYANT CLAIMS A ‘VERY SENR FIGURE PARLIAMENT’ TOLD HIM HE ‘SHOULDN’T BE AN MP’ BEE HE’S GAY

CAPTA UNRPANTS MP CHRIS BRYANT WHO POSED ON GAY DATG SE REWARD WH PROMOTN JUNR RANKS RHUFFLE

Reward: MP Chris Bryant has been stalled as No 2 to Commons Lear Harriet Harman Flamboyant homosexual MP Chris Bryant has been stalled as No 2 to Commons Lear Harriet Harman the rhuffle of junr ranks. The former Church of England clergyman earned himself the nickname Capta Unrpants after he circulated a photograph of himself along wh sexually explic msag through a gay webse. Capta Unrpants MP Chris Bryant who posed on gay datg se reward wh promotn junr ranks rhuffle.

The only thg I prevly knew about Chris Bryant was that he once appeared on the gay datg webse Gaydar his unrpants. "When I was born, was illegal to be gay Bra and until the last 13 years progrs was pafully slow, " says Bryant. I saw Peter Tatchell's 1996 list of what had to be achieved by a Labour ernment – civil partnerships, gays the ary, adoptn, equal age of nsent – and every sgle one of them has been done.

He brought up the chamber, " he says, referrg to an oblique reference the Conservative lear ma to him the Commons November last 's fascatg that the Rhondda chose Bryant – gay, a former Anglin prit, and someone who had dallied wh the Conservativ as a stunt – the first place. "'Chris, you know you're gay, don't you?

CHRIS BRYANT: 'I DON'T THK OF MYSELF AS A GAY MP'

'Gradually he realised that beg gay and beg a prit were patible. "When I was ordaed [ 1986], the view on homosexualy was 'Don't ask, don't tell', and, anyway, I wasn't really certa where I was gog, but by 1991 I thought, hang on I'm gay, and the church had changed s posn a b – had cid the Bible don't really like gays. There was a new document produced, and I remember the Bishop of Oxford sayg, 'I've never laid hands on a gay man' a week after he'd ordaed me.

In The Glamour Boys, Chris Bryant sets out to brg to light the remarkable and some s heroic ntributn of gay MPs to Bra’s volvement the send world war. But Bryant, the Labour MP for Rhondda, and gay himself – ed somethg of a poster boy for the gay hort today’s parliament – offers a much more tailed, fely more plex, acunt of the 10 “queer, or nearly queer” members of parliament who took an creasgly forthright stand agast Neville Chamberla’s policy of appeasg the German, Italian and Spanish dictators of the terwar years, riskg their reers and some s losg their liv battle.

”In fact, “the 17-strong Glamour Boys”, as the anti-appeasement factn the Commons were nastily dubbed by Chamberla, were by no means all gay, cludg as they did Harold Maclan, Anthony En, Dunn Sandys, Leo Amery and, of urse, Wston Churchill. A 1924 issue of Der Eigene, the world’s first gay the moment Hler me to power 1933, the Glamour Boys saw clearly that war was evable and, tentatively to beg wh, then wh creasg directns, they said so, currg the opprobrium both of their fellow parliamentarians and of the heavily pro-appeasement prs. Many of them had direct knowledge of Germany; before the Nazis me to power and even after, the gay MPs, like many other homosexual men, had ma a beele for Weimar Berl – that “bugger’s daydream”, as WH Aun put – relishg a gree of sexual eedom unimagable not the urage of the men, not only adoptg an unpopular stance parliament, but standg as MPs at a time when homosexualy was savagely punished.

LABOUR’S CHRIS BRYANT CLAIMS A ‘VERY SENR FIGURE PARLIAMENT’ TOLD HIM HE ‘SHOULDN’T BE AN MP’ BEE HE’S GAY

Dpe all of this, gay men still managed to enjoy themselv, and each other.