Don't vote Conservative: This week: Homophobia

By James Cox

The dawning of a general election campaign and we all have difficult decisions to make if we wish to exercise our legal right to vote for the party who will govern us for up to five years, until we have to do it all again.

For some, it will be a selection based on parental guidance (which is as illogical as the social perpetuation of localised religion, and a damn sight more important than which football team to follow), for a few it will be based on the physical interpretation of political promises and key issues, and for others it will be based on the candidates haircut and tie.

I’d like to appeal to those who, like me, are disenchanted by the political system; By the “us and them” mentality coursing through the veins of BOTH majority parties.
We live in an age where Labour fail to represent the working Left, undermining the entire principle of their existence. New Labour and the Tories seem remarkably interchangeable, in this age of media savvy Government and after 13 years of bloody war, privatisation and assaults on workers’ living standards, some say they will never vote Labour again. Already the Labour vote has slumped by four million between 1997 and 2005.
But there is an important difference between Labour and the Tories.
Basically it comes down to class and the reactionary nature of the “right” we have come to openly abhor in publications such as the Daily Mail : a nasty, fear mongering daily that wears it’s preservative, colonial, prejudices on its cuff linked sleeve.

Labour still retains a link with the organised working class through its union affiliations. And workers vote far more heavily for Labour than any other party.
Around 50 to 60 percent of workers vote Labour at general elections, three or four times more than any other party.

The Labour Party came into being to represent trade union leaders in parliament. The unions are still important to the party, although the union leaders are remarkably reluctant to use their power inside it in any meaningful way.
The Labour Party is based on the idea that workers can collectively change society while operating within the existing capitalist system.
It is a break from the idea that everything is best left to our “betters”. But it is still imprisoned by the severe limitations of a modern capitalist democracy that dictates votes are won and lost in televised debates and by vocal celebrity endorsement.

There are MANY reasons I will never vote for a Conservative Government and I think HOMOPHOBIA may be as good a reason as any.
In 1988 the Conservative Government instigated the controversial SECTION 28.
The amendment stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.
Conservative MP Jill Knight, who introduced Section 28, 1999 speech:
I was contacted by parents who strongly objected to their children at school being encouraged into homosexuality and being taught that a normal family with mummy and daddy was outdated. To add insult to their injury, they were infuriated that it was their money, paid over as council tax, which was being used for this.
They gave me some of the books with which little children as young as five and six were being taught. There was The Playbook for Kids about Sex in which brightly coloured pictures of little stick men showed all about homosexuality and how it was done. That book was for children as young as five. I should be surprised if anybody supports that.
(Note: She obviously never read Roger Red Hat).

In 1983 the Daily Mail, reported that a copy of a book entitled Jenny lives with Eric and Martin – portraying a little girl who lives with her father and his gay partner – was provided in a school library run by the Labour-controlled Inner London Education Authority.
This is the same newspaper that not only supports and compliments Conservative policies but also published a very recent editorial condemning late popstar Stephen Gately for his lifestyle choice: “the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see” – Jan Moir 16/11/09, Daily Mail.

In 1999 Conservative leader William Hague controversially sacked frontbencher Shaun Woodward for refusing to support the party line that Section 28 should not be repealed.
2000 saw prominent gay Conservative Ivan Massow defect to the Labour Party in response to the Conservative Party's continued support of Section 28.[15]
In May, 2000 the Christian Institute unsuccessfully took Glasgow City Council to court for funding an AIDS support charity which the Institute alleged promoted homosexuality. It had done so under the Conservative endorsed legislation of Section 28.

CONSERVATIVE LEADER, POLITICAL CANDIDATE AND POTENTIAL LEADER OF OUR COUNTRY DAVID CAMERON repeatedly attacked the Labour government's plans to abolish Section 28, publicly criticising then-Prime Minister Tony Blair as being "anti-family" and accused him of wanting the "promotion of homosexuality in schools"; At that time an unelected Conservative party member.

In 2003, once Cameron had been elected as Conservative MP for Witney, he continued to support Section 28. As the Labour government were determined to remove Section 28 from law, Cameron voted in favour of a Conservative amendment that retained certain aspects of the clause, which gay rights campaigners described as "Section 28 by the back door".
This was unsuccessful, and Section 28 was repealed by the Labour government without concession (Cameron was absent for the vote on its eventual repeal). However, in June 2009, Cameron - now the leader of the Conservative party - and campaigning to be the next Prime Minister (hmmmm)- formally apologised for his party introducing the law, stating that it was a mistake and had been offensive to gay people. (Don’t worry about it).
He restated this belief in January 2010 and proposed to alter the policy of the Conservative Party to reflect his belief that equality should be taught in British schools. (He’s a modern guy!)

It is of course up to you to decide if “former” homophobia is a good enough reason not to vote for the elitist, anti-union, Christian-right Conservatives.
It certainly is ONE of the decisive factors for me.
Labour may not offer the solutions we are after, and I feel that impotent dichotomy more than others, but voting for them can stop five years of Conservative rule.

Next week: Conservative rascism.