There is absolutely no way I would have supported the
Conservative Party when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. When I was a
young gay man in the 1980s, the homophobic laws that she, her Government, and
the majority of Conservative MPs supported, could have landed me in jail, just
for having sex when both my partner and I were eighteen, and therefore under
the then gay male age of consent of twenty-one. The Conservative Party also opposed
legislation to prevent people being fired just for being gay or lesbian.
There is plenty more to add to this shameful inventory.
The Conservatives opposed abolishing privacy laws, which meant gay men could be
prosecuted for having sex in a house or hotel when another person was resident
in any room of that dwelling, and laws that criminalised gay men who had sex
with more than one person at a time. The Conservative Party thought it was
perfectly acceptable for people to be arrested for propositioning another gay
person in a pub: something termed “importuning”. Indeed, there was a spate of
so-called “pretty policemen” who used to hang around in gay bars as agents provocateurs. Mrs Thatcher
introduced the notorious “Section 28”, which meant schools became neurotic
about mentioning homosexuality in sex education lessons in a fashion that might
imply gay sex or gay relationships were in any way being condoned.
Then there was the advent of the AIDS crisis. I remember
watching in disbelief as the full, horrific implications of this devastating
condition gradually unfolded, and as the news simply got worse and worse.
Initially, we had no idea the infectious agent could sit around in the body for
years, while its symptom-free host unwittingly passed it on to others; and for
all we knew, it was just as possibly transmitted by kissing, as by anal sex.
When information was finally available on how to prevent HIV transmission – or
HTLV3, as it was then called – we were relying on Mrs Thatcher’s government to
make sure this urgent information was disseminated as quickly and as effectively
as possible.
Effective public education would have required a public media
campaign that explicitly and unashamedly referred to “anal sex”, and that advocated
the use of condoms. But the prudish form of Christianity that permeated the
Conservative Party at that time – and that was also responsible for its
institutional homophobia – meant that such a campaign simply wasn’t going to
happen. Instead, the crisis was largely brushed under the carpet. There was a
bizarre television advertisement after the watershed consisting of an exploding
volcano and “AIDS” being carved into a gigantic tombstone. At the end of this
spectacle, we were promised a leaflet through our door with more information,
and were told, “Don’t die of ignorance.” The problem was that the advertisement
left us in total ignorance as to how we could protect ourselves.
The leaflets did arrive, and they did contain good advice,
albeit sanitised; but the Government’s efforts to be as discreet as possible in
order to avoid upsetting the prudes, gave the impression that AIDS was not
serious enough to make a big fuss about, or even to advise about urgently on
television. That, alas, fed in to the wishful thinking of many incredulous
young gay men, who did not want their sex lives to be impeded in this way. Many
people did die of ignorance, I am sure: unnecessary ignorance. And so many of
us were horrified at how blasé Thatcher’s Government seemed, when we, as gay
activists, were doing our best to get educated about the crisis, and to provide
information to others. Many of us at the time – perhaps with a tinge of
paranoia – even wondered whether the Government was doing so little because
they quite liked the idea of gay men being wiped out by AIDS; or at least, whether
they didn’t really care what happened to us.
Mrs Thatcher showed herself at her very worst, in my opinion,
when she spoke at the 1987 Conservative Party conference. The full extent of her homophobic ignorance
and prejudice was revealed when she said,
“Children
who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that
they have an inalienable right to be gay…. All of those children are
being cheated of a sound start in life—yes cheated.”
During all this time, the fight for gay and lesbian
equality was almost exclusively associated with the political Left. Even in the
Labour Party, it was an ongoing struggle to persuade Labour MPs to support an
age of consent for gay males of sixteen. (The age of consent for gay women was
already sixteen, which only served to emphasise the illogicality of the
discrimination.) There was a small handful of liberal Conservative MPs who
supported full equality, such as Steven Norris, and there was also a society
called the “Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality,” who were not
recognised by the Party, and whose letters to the then Chairman, Norman Tebbit,
used to go unanswered. But if you were gay or lesbian, it was very unusual for
you to be a supporter of the Conservative Party, and it carried quite a lot of
stigma under the circumstances.
It is hardly surprising that a person who has been
diminished, marginalised and undermined by a society, should become
anti-establishment as a result. That happened to so many of us. But the problem
I had was that my socialist identity did not sit very comfortably with me.
Whereas the Left supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, I supported keeping
our nuclear deterrent. There was much support on the Left for abortion on demand,
with heavy stigmatisation of anyone who suggested limitations being imposed on
abortions, whereas my own position on this issue, while liberal, was always
more conservative than the popular Leftist one. Then there was my waxing
concern about personal freedom in a society with state ownership of the means
of production, and concern about a destructive type of ideological
egalitarianism in Leftist education policy.
The long and the short of it is that, without the
homophobic bigotry prevalent in the Conservative Party during my younger years,
I would have been very happy to become a member.
Which is exactly what I did become as a result of Prime
Minister David Cameron’s principled and courageous support for equal marriage. And
I have enjoyed a very warm welcome from my local association in
Buckinghamshire, where I have got to know a group of wonderful, kind and
progressive people, who are absolutely nothing like the Tory Nasties
stereotyped by today’s propaganda of the Left.
David Cameron said that he supported equal marriage
because he is a Conservative: and this makes sense to those of us who regard
the essence of Conservatism as the pursuit of individual freedom, the pursuit
of justice, the removal of unfair and discriminatory barriers to citizens
realising their potential, and the pursuit of individual (as well as national)
security. Unfortunately, far too many Tories have historically associated
Conservatism with some of the worst aspects of dogmatic Christianity. The Conservative
Party has changed, and is continuing to change under the leadership of David
Cameron and his progressive colleagues, because the benign values of
Conservatism have now been separated from the pernicious influence of
homophobic dogmatic religion, which is always a toxic parasite and a blight on
the individual and collective soul, no matter what dogmatic religion it is, and
what society it infects. (And I am by no means referring to liberal and
non-fundamentalist forms of religion, for which I have a lot of time.)
It is hardly surprising, given the history of the
Conservative Party, that gay and lesbian people – particularly middle-aged
ones, like myself – have some very painful and negative memories associated
with the Tories. For some people, the mere word “Conservative” is laden with
negative stimuli, releasing automatic images of fanged vampire bats with
miniature Margaret Thatcher faces and handbags.
Yet, for those of us who are, at heart, natural
Conservatives, perhaps the time has now come to join, or at least vote for, the
party whose policies most closely reflect our personal values. There is still
stigma associated with voting Conservative in large sections of the LGBT
community, and there are indeed historical reasons for this, which I have
outlined above. But one thing we have surely had to learn, as LGBT people, is
how to be authentically ourselves in the face of pressures to conform, and how
to be willing to weather other people’s disapproval in the service of standing
up for what we believe in. If we are really Conservatives at heart, maybe this
is something we can also “come out” about: to ourselves, and then to others. No
matter how disapproving some people may be. One thing that makes LGBT people
powerful is the courage we have had to learn in order to forge a decent,
self-respecting life and identity for ourselves in the face of ignorance and
bigotry.
The Left tried, at least initially, to ascribe dishonest
motives to David Cameron in his support for equal marriage, describing it as
merely an attempt to “detoxify” the Conservative Party with the sole purpose of
winning votes. In my view, the Party did need some serious detoxifying, and
equal marriage is a part of this process. But it is clear that equality for
LGBT people is a matter of principle for the Prime Minister, and something to
which he is deeply committed. He came under ferocious attack from conservative
elements of most religions on these islands, as well as from a sizeable chunk
of his own party: and as anyone who ever read the comments under Daily
Telegraph online “gay marriage” articles will know, the attacks were often
vitriolic and personal. Many people left the Conservative Party and defected to
UKIP as a result of David Cameron’s refusal to cave in, and many predicted a
meltdown in Conservative support and Tory devastation in the 2015 General
Election as a result. David Cameron persevered regardless: something that would
have been a very risky thing to do if political pragmatism and not principle
had been the primary motivator.
As things stand, the Tory equal marriage support meltdown
has not happened, and indeed, the Conservatives are only a few points behind
Labour in the polls. But supporting equal marriage was electorally a risky
business, and things could have gone very much the other way.
Many anti-equal marriage voters have abandoned the
Conservative Party, and will be voting UKIP in the 2015 General Election. UKIP
have been all too keen to exploit Tory divisions on this issue, and to attract
homophobic votes by strongly opposing equality.
The Conservative Party has a great deal to offer LGBT
people and the campaign for LGBT equality. Detached from the fetters of fundamentalist
religion, it will continue to fight for individual freedom, for justice, for
our personal, financial and national security, for a cohesive society where
people are not relegated to the margins because of religious bigotry, and for
the removal of unjust impediments to equality of opportunity and
self-realisation.
And very importantly, we need to ask ourselves which party we
most trust to oppose the attempts of radical Islamists to impose the most
ruthless form of persecution imaginable on gay and lesbian people. Currently,
there is a widespread tendency on the Left to ignore or gloss over the oppression
of LGBT people by radical Islamists, both at home and abroad, denigrating
anyone who criticises fundamentalist Islam and radical Islamism as a “racist”
and “Islamophobe”. (And I am not referring to mainstream believing or cultural
Muslims, who have nothing in common with violent Islamist extremism and
bigotry: mainstream Muslims are as much victims and potential victims of
violent Islamism as everyone else.)
Let us give a thought to the gay and
lesbian children from Islamist families who are taught that homosexuals will be
burnt for eternity in hell, and ask ourselves whether we agree with the stupid
cultural relativism popular on the Left that suggests no culture has the right
to claim moral superiority to any other, and therefore to judge any other. Most
of the Left – with the exception of a few brave and independently-minded
individuals – are deafeningly silent when it comes to criticising fundamentalist
Islamism and the effect it has on the well-being and freedom of women, children
and LGBT people, who often have no choice but to live in such radicalised
families and communities.
While this continues, the Left campaigns for a policy of
appeasement towards the religiofascist state of Iran, which is close to acquiring
nuclear weapons. This is one of the theocracies where LGBT people are subjected
to flogging, imprisonment and hanging, and whose last president wanted Israel –
the only democratic, liberal state in the region where LGBT people are treated
with respect - wiped off the map. For as
long as the Left continues to ignore and appease violent and aggressive
Islamism at home and abroad, it is no friend to the national, or global, LGBT
community.
For me, the Conservative Manifesto is far from perfect:
but it is a “best fit”, and I am free to campaign for the changes in which I
believe. It seems to me that there are probably many LGBT people for whom the
Conservative Party is a “best fit”: people who, fundamentally, are natural Conservative
supporters. Every single one of us who votes Conservative for the first time
will compensate for one anti-equality ex-Tory who defected to UKIP. The
Conservative Party has not yet completed its journey on LGBT rights, as we can
see from the handful of homophobic troglodytes who still sit on the back
benches and in the Lords: but thanks to David Cameron, it is now well on its
way. And what a great thing if we LGBT natural Conservatives can play our part
in accelerating that journey, and in ensuring that every homophobic vote lost
to UKIP because of equal marriage, is replaced by at least one new pink cross
in the Conservative box.
© Gary
Powell, 2013
