Quote of the Day: Ben Summerskill

Earlier I saw a Tweet or two that mentioned that this month's Attitude had an article on gay equal marriage, including comment from Stonewall. They have this comment from, I'm sorry it is him again, Ben Summerskill.

"Anyone who's involved in campaigning [for equal marriage] should be very cautious about being seduced by politicians in any party who are looking for political advantage and have have different imperatives from gay people in the wider world."

Now I have a problem with that. I am a gay politician from the party that has just passed an equal marriage policy federally, after I was involved it getting it passed at Scottish level. Do I have be be cautious of seducing myself? I have been listening to the wider gay community, I even had a few thanks yous from various members of that community for the work I've already done on the issue.

Meanwhile, I'm reading from comments on PinkNews story of Summerskill's comments at Lib Dem conference is that Stonewall supporters etc are wondering just where is the consultation with their own 'members' a phrase that seems hard to pin down who it covers.

Update: The original PinkNews article was update and now contains the following disclaimer:

"Comments made during the 21st September have been suspended at the request of Stonewall. It is possible to post comments though on this amended version of the article.

PinkNews.co.uk is happy to publish the clarifications above and apologises for any confusion caused by the original report."

So Stonewall are trying to censor freedom of expression.

Cause or Effect? Mental Health Among Gay Community

Yesterday whilst I was busy moving back to Northern Ireland I did sit down with the Observer while on the ferry. However, this one from Tracy McVeigh did stand out in light of a conversation me and Mícheál had had the previous evening.

It is looking at the issue of mental health in the LGBT community that will appear in this month's Attitude. The article suggests that rather than homosexuality being a result of mental health as was an officially held stance until the 90s, it is a result of societies failure to provide for homosexuals. One killing quote is:

"Imagine if we expected a young heterosexual girl to get her first lesson about relationships in a singles bar."

For the fact is that young gay men or lesbian women only really get the chance to meets others with their sexuality in that setting or online. Or at least with any certainty that the question is not going to be taken the wrong way. A heterosexual can happily go up to somebody they fancy and tell them so without fear of any repercussion except rejection. An LGBT individual has to take a chance of a random person they fancy. First they come out to that person by asking, that person may take an adverse reaction to the suggestion that they themselves are gay, which might result in violence, name calling etc. instead of just rejection.

There is also a pointing out of the word 'gay' amongst young people to mean that something is bad. The issue arises when someone who has grown up hearing that usage suddenly realises later on that they are the word which those around them have associated with equally bad all this time.

All this insecurity on many different levels leads to the fact that there are so few out role models that people can look up to. If even someone has confident as David Laws feels the need to have kept his sexuality private and Gareth Thomas only recently had the confidence to come out himself, it shows that even the most confident people are going to be open about their sexuality without mix.

However, from personal experience even some of the most confident, outspoken and outgoing gay people I know have some level of mental instability. It's not what made them gay but it is a result of the pressures and expectations that society places on them.

Do click on the link above and read Tracy's article in full it is well worth a read and something that even straight friends of LGBT individuals should read to enable them to maybe understand what their friends are sometimes going through.

The Attitude Check - The Leaders' Responses Part II

Yesterday I started to look at the common questions that Johann Hari posed to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown over the last three months in Attitude. I'm initially going to look at the common questions and each leaders response.

The second such question was:

Who were the first gay people you knew?

Point of information: All three leaders are of roughly the same generation, though Gordon is of course slightly older. Gordon in 59 this Saturday, David Cameron is only a few months older than Nick Clegg who recently turned 43.

Clegg: That is a difficult question for me as I don't think there was a particular moment. I had a very liberal upbringing, a very open upbringing, I was lucky. I had very liberal parents, an international upbringing. I had gay friends at school and worked with gay colleagues for a long time, so there was no sort of "Eureka!" moment when I said "oh!" - it wasn't like that. I think that's in keeping for someone of my generation. I'm blind to this. My closest friend at university who I lived with, came out, but, you know, I never thought of him as "My Gay Friend". He was just Luke, my best friend, that was it.

Nick's answer is very much like most people of my sort of age. It sort of happens around you from school up. No big deal, but being able to place one time or one person is tough, but he does talk a little about one friend. It's very much a relaxed answer, spoken in a chit chat sort of way. You can tell he's at ease with the question and merely answers it.

Cameron: Openly gay? I suppose friends I made particularly after I left university. I went to the Conservative Research Department and since then [I have had] quite a lot of [gay] friends, actually. It's difficult to know sometimes, going further back.

Ouch! I have to say it that opening is something that most Attitude readers will have also cringed at, most of us may well have experienced the first person we knew who was gay was letting us in on a secret possibly, a true friend hoping you'd keep their confidence. Failing that I don't believe any one could have gone through University in the 80s without having at least one gay friend. Somehow that is just what Eton and Oxford educated Cameron seems to have done. Now they may not have been friends but surely they were known to him.

Brown: Good friends at university. I went to one of the first civil partnership ceremonies in Britain, and it was very moving. I thought - here's something that wouldn't have happened in Britain ten years ago without there being a Labour government to bring it about. It demanded such courage from the people who campaigned for it for decades and then it took legislative decisions to make it happen. It showed our country is far more tolerant that people thought - we are ready to embrace the dignity of every individual. The gay community in Britain should take credit not just for winning rights for themselves, but making our country a better country. People respect individuals more as a result of the achievements you have had. And to have changed not only your own community but also to have changed the country itself over the last ten years - it's an incredible achievement. And that message has gone out across the world, everyone can see it.

That's why I spoke out so strongly when there were moves to roll back civil partnerships in America. There are people who have made a commitment to each other and clearly loved each other, who are now faced with this idea that it is going to be rescinded. It's totally unacceptable. And that's why I'm fighting to get all the countries in Europe to recognize civil partnerships carried out in Britain. We want countries where that hasn't been the case - especially in Eastern Europe - to recognize them. We're negotiating agreements with France and then with Spain. But I think we can actually go further than that. And if we could show, in Eastern Europe as well as Western Europe, that this respect for gay people is due, that would be really important. Of course it will be tough, and it will take many years, but that has never ever been a good reason not to fight. Every single change we've delivered for equality we started off with people telling us it couldn't be done.

Brown started well with his opening four words, they answered the question in part. He carries out about going to one of the first civil partnerships. But this launches him off into a tangent, rather than talking about any of those friendships he lurches into a treatise. There is repetition from question one of key words individual, rights community/society, equality. There are all sort of abstract concepts, speaking in a general rather than a specific. Rather stilted as if learnt rather than from personal experience. Also for quite a long answer only the first four words and possibly the second sentence actually deal with answering the question. Like an examination answer or a political answer picking up a key theme and running with it in totally a different direction.

Neither Brown or Cameron come across well in this answer, Cameron stalls with his question, before working out where to go. Brown starts with the answer but in four words is off talking generalities rather than about the friends, the object of the question.

My rating of this answer:

• Clegg 7/10
• Cameron 3/10
• Brown 2/10
  

The Attitude Check - The Leaders' Responses Part I

Johann Hari has now completed his set of three interviews in Attitude with the three major party leaders. There are some questions which are specific to one leader and his party but several which are generic across all three. Over the next few nights I will be looking at those and giving my opinion on how they responded. Here is how Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg responded to the opening question they all were asked.

Why should people vote for [your party] at the next general election:

Brown: Because we [Labour] are the anti-discrimination, anti-prejudice and pro-equality party. We've always been determined to protect and defend the rights of the people who need the protection of the law. I think the whole history of the Labour movement has been to take on prejudice, discrimination and vested interests where they exist. If we've not done enough until 1997, we are to blame for that. But we have done a huge amount since, we've got a lot more to do, and in our blood, in our DNA, is a determination to speak up for equality and against inequalities and against injustices. I am really proud that once people have won rights, you can't ever humiliate them again. You can't ever go back. My view is: you start from the dignity of every individual. You want a society where every individual has the chance to realise their potential to the full, and any barriers that exist - like prejudice - is dismantled. And so, my position, starts from a principled position. Some people might think - this guy is a son of the Manse, brought up in a very Presbyterian environment. But I've always been very proud that the Church of Scotland has a much more egalitarian view about gay rights than others.

Sadly for the Prime Minister the way he speaks even comes across in the written word as dour. Also this is a position statement there is a lack of clear reasons why we should vote now, apart from the one line "we have more to do".

Clegg: I want anyone from any community to vote for us because of the values we [Liberal Democrats] represent, not because they think we tick a particular set of boxes. We are a liberal party who believe in tolerance. We have the longest and proudest record of campaigning for gay rights in British politics. The main reason I want people to vote for us is not some sort of segmented appeal because we've got a vision of Britain could be that I believe lot of folk - gay, straight, white, black, Asian, women, men - can support.

Nick Clegg is the only one not wholly cuffed by the fact he is speaking to a gay publication. He's setting out the ideals, elsewhere in the interview come some of the specifics. He's showing the tolerance that he talks about by not pigeon holing, the other two talk of some other worldliness but Clegg is all encompassing, not boxing you in don't look at us just for tick boxes.

Cameron: Above all because I think the country needs change. Change in terms of sorting out our economy, in terms of improving public services, and in terms of some of the things that are going wrong in our society. I think I can say to gay people that not only is it change we need, it is a changed Conservative Party that faces you at the election. Not that we have a perfect record on all of these things, I know. But there have been some major changes that have taken place under my leadership.

I know there are gay people who have conservative values, such as wanting us to be supportive of business and enterprise, wanting to have strong defense believing in strong defense of liberty and so on - but in the past they have felt held back [from voting for us] because the Conservative party was sending them a signal that we didn't support them or their lifestyle. That has changed. I think we can look gay people in the eye and can say you can now back us both for the values we have but also because we now support gay equality.

Initial thoughts on David Cameron is that he is trying to overcome the legacy that his party have established through their past actions. Hence the apology, however twice he says "I think we can" either say or look at gay people differently from before. Think and can together are two soft words which may hint at a certain uncertainty. Cameron also hits out at the wider agenda though.

Overall it is a tough start for Cameron, indeed Hari doesn't let him off later in the interview so maybe he is guessing the course that the interview will take. Brown sounds like a lecturer in political history, laying out the history of the party but not giving much of a vision for the future no reason to vote Labour to move forward. Both Cameron clearly and Clegg by implication which is later fleshed out give a reason for hope. It may be that Labour is basically out of ideas but the other two both show an enthusiasm, the snappiness of Nicks answer to the first question being a prime example of bring it on.

For openers I'd give

• Nick 7/10
• Dave 6/10
• Gordon 4/10

More tomorrow at the same time