[ezinra]

I can get five letters (eg, BELLS) from 'EDL's LGBT'.

There was really an LGBT division of the EDL? That was never going to end well, was it?

I have a lot of gay friends and I an aften surprised how many of them are Conservative supporters.

I'm always surprised at why people are surprised. Being gay is really only a small part of one's political identity. Then again, I don't really understand why anyone is a conservative supporter, regardless of who they sleep with.

[Emmett Jenner]

Then again, I don't really understand why anyone is a conservative supporter, regardless of who they sleep with.

Me neither. If it worked like that then I'd be a keen tory voter.

[oboogie]

Emmett may be interested to hear that I had a very interesting conversation with a couple of UKIPers on You Tube last night. One was a white supremacist, the other was not so moderate and resorted to making offensive remarks about the Scots, Welsh and Irish. Look him up he calls himself ukculture and the vid is called "No Ugly Duckling".

Never heard of this before. Not a decision maker or policy creator. You can't choose who supports you.

No. But don't you find it interesting the types you attract? He clearly believes UKIP have something to offer him; some shared objectives. I wonder what gave him that idea?

[ezinra]

You can have the best policies in the world but you'll never get every ejit with the remotest connection with the party to know or follow them. Maybe a military dictatorship might manage the issues of order and discipline in such a way that these stories wouldn't come up but that's not the county we live in.

Julia Gasper likened homosexuality to paedophilia. She said gay people should stop complaining about inequality and be grateful to the heterosexuals who gave birth to them. This is homophobia. How did Ukip react? It did nothing. Gasper is still chairman of Oxford Ukip and still an electoral candidate for the party. She hasn't apologised — in fact, she suggested that people who complained about what she'd said should be sectioned under the mental health act — and Ukip has not put pressure on her to do so.

I'm glad that Ukip acknowledges the existence of LGBT people. But I'm not interested in tokenism or facebook pages. I want Ukip supporters — people like you, Emmett — to take an active, public stance in favour of equality. None of your candidates for police and crime commissioner have made tackling crimes against LGBT people a priority; they're more upset about speed cameras. Your party claims to be libertarian, but doesn't want to give gay people the same 'liberty' to get married that straight people have. It continues to refer to LGBT issues as 'political correctness', but gay people are no more politically correct than anyone else; we just want equality. Ukip isn't offering that, so Ukip LGBT will continue to be a social club for a small, safe clique of euro-bores rather than the transformative movement it could be.

[Lord Brett]

I have a lot of gay friends and I an aften surprised how many of them are Conservative supporters.

I'm always surprised at why people are surprised. Being gay is really only a small part of one's political identity. Then again, I don't really understand why anyone is a conservative supporter, regardless of who they sleep with.

Oh, I realise it's me being naive. I have this idea that oppressed minorities might have sympathy for others and am constantly disappointed. It doesn't make them bad people, just misguided.

[Big Rob]

Here's a picture of a tit



That's what the topics about isn't it....

[Fozzy]

The anti-gay marriage lot always come up with the argument that, even if the law says that churches can't be compelled to perform gay marriage ceremonies, they could be sued under the Equality Act. It's totally illogical, but in any event the argument could be destroyed at a stroke by having a clause in the relevant Act to the effect that churches are exempt from the Equality Act in that situation. It would be interesting to see what homophobes come up with when that argument is destroyed.

[ezinra]

Something about parenting? Or 'it's a slippery slope to incest'?

[Lord Brett]

For God's sake, won't somebody think of the children!

[ezinra]

Oh, I realise it's me being naive. I have this idea that oppressed minorities might have sympathy for others and am constantly disappointed. It doesn't make them bad people, just misguided.

The first thing to say is that gay people are still far more likely to be on the left. There may be lots of reasons for this; one of them is empathy with other minority groups. But when you look closer, and think in terms of interests and experience rather than a vague centre-periphery identity politics, it's quite hard to find stuff that gay people have in common with other minorities. Tackling racism and homophobia in schools, for example, requires quite different priorities: black people don't suddenly appear in class at age 15; gay white kids haven't faced institutional discrimination since the day they entered the school system. Disabled couples are free to get married if they're straight; able-bodied gay couples are less affected by cuts to welfare than the average household, because they're less likely to have children and more likely to both be in full-time work.

I think there's a tendency to presume that "oppressed minorities" should act politically as minorities, even when that goes against their own interest. That seems contra-intuitive to me. It's above all the privileged who can afford to act for the greater good.

[oboogie]

I think there's a tendency to presume that "oppressed minorities" should act politically as minorities, even when that goes against their own interest.

Well yes, as Martin Niemöller pointed out, there is an element of self-interest. As I mentioned up-thread, bigots like the EDL are quite happy to attack gay people if there are no Muslims handy.

[Lord Brett]

I think there's a tendency to presume that "oppressed minorities" should act politically as minorities, even when that goes against their own interest.

Well yes, as Martin Niemöller pointed out, there is an element of self-interest. As I mentioned up-thread, bigots like the EDL are quite happy to attack gay people if there are no Muslims handy.

I don't have the relevant reference works to hand to give examples, and Googling 'Gay Fascists' and 'Gay National Front' is a depressing exercise, but there is a long history of gay men being involved with fascist and neo nazi organisations such as the NF.

Shock, horror - Gays can be bloody idiots just like everyone else!

[oboogie]

I think there's a tendency to presume that "oppressed minorities" should act politically as minorities, even when that goes against their own interest.

Well yes, as Martin Niemöller pointed out, there is an element of self-interest. As I mentioned up-thread, bigots like the EDL are quite happy to attack gay people if there are no Muslims handy.

I don't have the relevant reference works to hand to give examples, and Googling 'Gay Fascists' and 'Gay National Front' is a depressing exercise, but there is a long history of gay men being involved with fascist and neo nazi organisations such as the NF.

Shock, horror - Gays can be bloody idiots just like everyone else!

Of course. I'm suggesting perhaps they shouldn't.

[Abernathy]

I know what you're getting at. Working out why anybody is a Tory is difficult enough, but working out why a gay person should be a Tory is somehow harder yet. I dare say one imagines that in the light of experience of prejudice against them as members of a minority group, it might be reasonable for any gay person of a certain level of IQ to harbour a certain solidarity with other minority groups (as well as their own) suffering prejudice - quite often at the hands of the Tory party - that would logically preclude them embracing Tory ideology.

But it would appear not.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I've spent a lot of time talking to a couple of gay christians, trying to understand why they would bother.