What Scotland's new Ukip MEP thinks of the LGBT rights movement.
“Equal rights lobby are not interested in equitable solutions,” Mr David Coburn told me via Twitter on 31 May last year, before calling me a "bigot" and saying I have "got it in" for people of faith because I supported the legalisation of equal marriage.
But Mr Coburn isn't any old Ukip reactionary. He is himself openly gay, and wrote to attack equal marriage in a Pink News piece of 2012.
So here we are: campaigners for LGBT equality are degraded
to the "equal rights lobby" in Mr Coburn's mind. But not only that.
Apparently we are "not interested in equitable solutions."
This is the mentality of Scotland's new Ukip MEP. A gay man
who, with glib generalisations worthy of Melanie Phillips, denigrates the
movement that has provided him with the freedom and equality he is able to
enjoy as a gay man today.
The link to the Twitter thread where Mr Coburn makes his
comments is here. (I have a screenshot, in case this comment should ever disappear.)
I had posted on Twitter as I'd wanted to know how Ukip could
claim they were protecting the rights of people of faith by opposing the
introduction of equal marriage. After all, no-one was going to force churches etc. to
marry LGBT couples; and if the European Court of Human Rights were going
to impose SSM on churches, mosques, etc., it would surely already have done so in those EU states where SSM had already existed for some time. Furthermore, if the ECHR were likely to use equalities legislation to do this, I was wondering why Ukip was not warning of the risk women priests would be imposed on all churches, too.
Here are Mr Coburn's noteworthy comments from my Twitter
exchange with him, which you will see in the thread linked to above:
Coburn: “Equal rights lobby are not interested in equitable
solutions”
Coburn: “Equal rights political expression cant be
trnaslated [sic] into religion”
Powell: "'Equal rights lobby are not interested in
equitable solutions.' Disgraceful you dismiss civil rights movement like
this"
Coburn: “If you take rights from one group and hand them to
another that is not equitable -it is also not tolerant”
Powell: “Campaigners for LGBT rights have achieved much to
be proud of, in the face of reactionaries & opportunistic colluders.”
Coburn: “Yes and Gay marriage is a step too far”
Powell: “The only "right" of religionists that
equal marriage is denying is their
perceived right to discriminate.UKIP is a sell-out”
Coburn: “You have obviously got it in for People of Faith -
so you must be the bigot”
Coburn: “If you truly believed in equal rights you'd make
sure they are for all - inc people of Faith”
Powell (in response to Coburn saying SSM was "a step
too far": “It wasn't in Canada or Netherlands or the many states/
countries that have introduced it & it
isn't for our elected MPs.”
Coburn: “ok getting bored-you're ranting and raving now”
Powell: “When "People of Faith" try to undermine
civil rights & impose religion on others, yes I will oppose them. UKIP
opportunists”
I will leave it to the reader to decide whether I was
"ranting and raving", or whether Mr Coburn found he was out of his depth
with his flimsy Ukip platitudes, just as I will leave it to the reader to
decide who, if either of us, was the bigot in this exchange.
In my own Pink News piece of 5 May 2014, I explained how Ukip had stitched up the UK LGBT community on equal marriage in order to poach socially conservative voters from the Conservative Party. Clearly a very important strategy for Ukip, and Mr Coburn now receives his reward for his loyal defence of this thoroughly cynical policy with its thoroughly indefensible justification.
In my own Pink News piece of 5 May 2014, I explained how Ukip had stitched up the UK LGBT community on equal marriage in order to poach socially conservative voters from the Conservative Party. Clearly a very important strategy for Ukip, and Mr Coburn now receives his reward for his loyal defence of this thoroughly cynical policy with its thoroughly indefensible justification.
© Gary Powell, 2014
