Glad to be gay, glad to be Tory | Conservativ | The Guardian

Contents:

• WTMSTER NOW HAS 32 OPENLY GAY, LBIAN AND BISEXUAL MPS
• GAY TORY MP FIGHTS BACK TEARS OVER 'DAMAGE' HE SUFFERED HIDG HIS SEXUALY THE ARMY
• THE TTH ABOUT LIFE AS A GAY TORY MP
• GAY TORY MP MIKE FREER LLS ON HIS OWN PARTY TO END ‘TOXIC’ CULTURE WAR: ‘HUMAN RIGHTS REALLY ARE NOT BATABLE’
• GLAD TO BE GAY, GLAD TO BE TORY
• GAY MPS: THE PHOTOGRAPH THAT SHOWS WTMSTER'S ATTU TOWARDS LGBT POLICIANS IS CHANGG
• THE UK’S PARLIAMENT IS STILL THE GAYT THE WORLD AFTER 2019 ELECTN

WTMSTER NOW HAS 32 OPENLY GAY, LBIAN AND BISEXUAL MPS

Wtmster be the world's gayt Parliament wh 32 openly gay, lbian and bisexual MPs There are 12 Conservative, 13 Labour and six SNP MPs who are openly gayIn the last Parliament there were 26 gay, lbian and bisexual members Study also nclud there were 155 electn ndidat who were gay Published: 23:14 BST, 13 May 2015 | Updated: 13:14 BST, 14 May 2015.

Bra now has 32 openly gay, lbian and bisexual MPs ParliamentBra now has the gayt Parliament the world after last week’s are 32 openly gay, lbian and bisexual MPs – jt unr 5 per cent of the total number the Commons. This dwarfs the 12 and ten the parliaments of Swen and the Netherlands rpectively, both untri that pri themselv on their liberal attu to gay rights. Acrdg to analysis by the New Statman magaze, 13 are Labour MPs, 12 are Conservativ and six reprent the the last Parliament there were 26 gay, lbian and bisexual Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative year the Conservativ put up more openly gay ndidat than any other party – 39 men and three women.

Out of their 13 gay, lbian and bisexual MPs om the prev Parliament, 12 stood for re-electn and only one – Eric Ollerenshaw – was feated. His loss was ma up for by the electn of Ben Howlett of the ten seats Labour took om the Tori, three were won by gay ndidat – W Streetg, Peter Kyle and Cathere Smh. The ne cumbent Labour gay MPs held on fortably and the SNP returned seven gay and lbian MPs, cludg 20-year-old Mhairi Black, the youngt MP to be elected sce SNP parliamentary party is now 12.

GAY TORY MP FIGHTS BACK TEARS OVER 'DAMAGE' HE SUFFERED HIDG HIS SEXUALY THE ARMY

5 per cent gay, lbian and bisexual – the hight proportn of any party the Cathere Smh, left and W Streetg, right, who are openly homosexual won seats for Labour prevly held by the Conservativ The SNP returned seven gay and lbian MPs cludg 20-year-old Mhairi Black, pictured, the youngt MP to be elected sce 1667 The New Statman lculated that there were 155 out gay ndidat May 2015. Their report also nclud that Tory gay, lbian and bisexual ndidat tend to perform nsirably better than their straight lleagu. Openly gay Labour MP Peter Kyle celebrat beg elected to reprent Hove at the recent electn Ben Howlett, is the openly gay Conservative MP, reprentg Bath, wng the seat om the Liberal DemocratsHowever all four gay and bisexual Liberal Democrat MPs were oted om their Reynolds, om the LGBT [Lbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgenr] Reprentatn and Rights Rearch Iniative, said: ‘In some plac, beg out seems to have helped the ndidate’s vote.

Crisp Blunt spoke movgly about beg gay the armed forc, as MPs discsed the landmark Etherton Report to the historil treatment of gay people the aryVio LoadgVio UnavailableCrisp Blunt fights back tears as he reunts time army as a gay manA Tory MP fought back tears today as he talked about the “damage” he suffered by hidg his sexualy while servg the Army.

THE TTH ABOUT LIFE AS A GAY TORY MP

Former mister Crisp Blunt, 63, repeatedly psed as he spoke a parliamentary bate about a report to the treatment of gay people the armed forc. Rishi Sunak formally apologised earlier to thoands of troops kicked out of the armed forc for beg gay. While homosexualy was crimalised 1967, anyone who was gay the UK ary before 2000 faced beg booted out or had to hi their secret.

The former mister was speakg as Defence Secretary Ben Wallace ma a statement about the treatment of gay people the armed forc. The MP for Reigate, Surrey, me out as gay 2010 as he spl om his wife.

GAY TORY MP MIKE FREER LLS ON HIS OWN PARTY TO END ‘TOXIC’ CULTURE WAR: ‘HUMAN RIGHTS REALLY ARE NOT BATABLE’

Rearch published this year found that more than 400, 000 people who are gay, transgenr or non-bary had been subjected to someone tryg to change, “cure” or supprs their sexual orientatn or genr a letter to Sunak seen by the Guardian, those phg for the ban to be enacted speedily said the ernment’s “moral failg” not yet publishg the legislatn “should ncern all”. This is how ed to be for many when I was an MP, and there were dozens of other gay Tori at Wtmster, and nothg was said, and everythg was steeped alhol, and ltle was off-lims so long as uld be nied, and sex was quick, lovels and panicky. Chris Pcher MP is not some herald of a dystopian future of sexual abandon and shamels abe: stead the picture is of a sad fiftysomethg throwback to the 1980s when Mr Pcher turned 20 and the Metropolan Police hnted London pubs as agents provotrs tryg to tch gay men sg too sistently the lavatori so they uld be charged wh ‘importung’.

There was so ltle opportuny to make proper iendships; and an endurg homosexual relatnship, if you dared be open, nmned you to disqualifitn om polics, om advancement most profsns and om much of the public sector and the bs world. There was even a gay magaze lled Prowler.

‘Outg’ other gay men was one of the taboos, but when me to lookg for sex, ‘anythg go’ pretty much summed up. Born Walsall, raised Staffordshire, his adolcence jt a few years too early to learn the self-rpect that legal reforms and changg attus would soon engenr, his youthful days as a young Tory arrivg when there were plenty of other gay young Tori but honty was polil ath. There’s a new gay world out there, and Pcher isn’t part of .

GLAD TO BE GAY, GLAD TO BE TORY

Today’s young gays have nothg to hi and ls c (and far more efficient) ways of searchg for relatnships. The new gay world drks ffee Soho; is unaaid to look for long-term partnership; is fairly tolerant of promiscuy but nralgilly tolerant of abe; and as disapprovg of sexual harassment as is any new man the days.

As a parliamentary vice-print of the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equaly the early 1980s, I chaired a meetg where our gut speaker was the late Ian Harvey, who as an MP and mister had had a promisg reer until ught wh a young guardsman the bh St Jam’s Park, wherpon he rigned. Poilievre tells T to 'butt out' of New Bnswick's policy on LGBTQ stuntsPoilievre wish Canadians a happy Pri month — but won't say if he'll attend an eventThe "straight pri" movement has emerged recent years as a backlash agast growg social acceptance of gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and other sexually diverse Pri paras are held around the world throughout the summer months.

They mark the June 1969 Stonewall rt, when gay bar patrons fought back agast a police crackdown — a pivotal moment wily seen as the start of morn gay rights paras are meant to celebrate a muny that has endured generatns of opprsn and events have taken on new promence at a time when some jurisdictns, notably the U. "Poilievre's adoptive father is posg his shadow bet Parliament, Poilievre picked a lbian and a gay man for two proment posns. Openly gay Tory MP Mike Freer has pared the ernment’s treatment of trans people to nversatns on gay people the 70s and 80s.

GAY MPS: THE PHOTOGRAPH THAT SHOWS WTMSTER'S ATTU TOWARDS LGBT POLICIANS IS CHANGG

Openly gay Conservative MP Mike Freer has lled on his own party to end “toxic” bat over LGBTQ+ issu, statg that human rights are “not batable”. Freer told PolicsHome that today’s discsn of trans rights the UK is siar to the homophobic rhetoric of the 1970s and ‘80s, “which mak me unfortable”. “So when lleagu talked about gay marriage makg them physilly sick – or when lleagu suggted was a step towards legalisg polygamy or ct … they need to remember that there are people volved and we should remember that the words spoken this chamber hurt far beyond this chamber when we speak.

THE UK’S PARLIAMENT IS STILL THE GAYT THE WORLD AFTER 2019 ELECTN

Freer add that the Tory party had overseen progrsive chang, cludg extendg HPV vacc to gay and bisexual men and boys. When Ken Livgstone ma his famo ment about the Tory party beg "riddled" wh gay men back Febary, he igned a row over his choice of words. They uldn't really, as is a fact: the Conservative party do have a large number of gay members and Black, the first openly gay Tory the Hoe of Lords, put most eloquently.

He's quoted Tory Pri And Prejudice, a recent history of the Conservativ and homosexualy: "It was one of those strange phenomena that when the Conservative party appeared natnally to be at is most homophobic, at the very heart of the anisatn were all the fluential gay men. "This phenomenon is seen as one of the endurg mysteri of mory polics: why do so many gay men support a party they may thk don't (or once didn't) support them?

(Another mystery, cintally, is why a Liberal Democrat party keenly supportive of gay rights should have suffered so many high-profile embarrassments over closeted MPs, but that is for another day. Wh the formali over, we retreated to the bar where, to my surprise, beme obv that this cross-party gay group was about 80% Tory. We chatted about many issu, cludg social liberalism, homosexualy and Alan Dunn (the first servg Tory MP to make a cisn to e out).