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Tories in queer hypocrisy shocker!

Ellie Keen — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:29:54 +0000

So now the Tories are courting the pink vote. Big surprise. But the notion, promoted even by the BBC, that gays might have a ‘duty’ to vote Conservative is baffling.

They’ve wheeled out Margot James, PPC for Stourbridge and noted deep-blue dyke, to tell us all why we need to vote Tory. This is the same Margot James who did not stand as a gay candidate at the last election, and who has been heard saying that she hoped her partner’s name, Jay, would be mistaken for that of a man by reporters. Ms James’ parroting of the party-line at the Stonewall event yesterday goes something like this:

“Gay people are net contributors to public services through their taxes, because very few of them have children.

“I think gay people have got more angst on this issue than anybody else because gay people are paying in, through their taxes and actually using far less of the NHS because they tend not to have families, less of the education system for the same reason and all the more reason to be angry with this government for the waste of their taxes.”

Translation: “Everyone knows you faggots hate kids! So vote for us – we hate kids, too!’

The suggestion that homosexuals do not have ‘families’ is both degrading and manifestly false. I happen to live in a massive multi-sexual household of six. None of us are related by blood, but we consider ourselves family. All of us, furthermore, have mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters and all of us feel that – despite our sexuality – we are just as invested in other humans as anybody else. Me and my big queer family are appalled by this throwaway rhetoric, at a Stonewall event, no less.

The logic of the tory tax argument also falls down when the ageing society is brought into play. Sure, homosexuals may, on average, raise fewer sproglets than their het friends, but this makes it all the more important for us that we live in a society that invests properly in healthcare, elderly care and the pensions system. Without the dubious surity of grown-up kids to wipe our octogenarian posteriors, we are going to need a government that invests in our care – a government that values the contribution we make as members of society enough to make public spending a priority.

The main tory line, however, remains that you and I should vote Conservative because, well, there are quite a lot of gay conservatives. Newsflash: there have always been gay tories; there have been gay tories before the word was even invented. What there have never been are tories promoting a gay agenda. In recent years, tory MPs have, for the most part, had an appalling voting record on queer issues in parliament – vital issues like civil partnerships and the age of consent. The tories are quite happy for us to carry on shuffling in the dark. If they’re gay, too, they certainly haven’t traditionally wanted the world to know about it. The tory closet door remains firmly shut. And no wonder, this being the party that introduced and tried desperately to save Section 28 of the Local Government Act, 1988.

Just a reminder: 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”. Ian Duncan Smith and a great deal of the tory party faithful spent 2003 trying to save this disgustingly homophobic piece of legislation. Nobody has apologised for that, and the silence of top conservatives over their shocking record at the Stonewall event stunk of hypocrisy.

I am not suggesting that just because you like a bit of same-sex action you absolutely must be a political radical. Not at all. Not one jot. In fact, I’m grudgingly of the opinion that one thing the 1990s were good for was freeing gay men and women of the grinding obligation not to also be bigoted fuckwits if they so chose. But bigotry and a forward-thinking queer agenda have never gone hand in hand, and if one is queer – not just gay, which is a statement of fact, but politically queer – you do have a duty to vote for anyone else apart from the tory party and far right.

Queer politics involve more than a private penchant for cock and a public rhetoric of tax breaks for straight, married couples. Queer politics are politics which make it easier for the millions of men and women who choose to live and love outside of the heteronormative box to do so without cultural, practical or financial discrimination. Queer politics are inherently radical, and not everyone working towards them is gay, and not everyone gay has queer politics. Let’s not mistake gay – which is what the Conservative party has always secretly been – for queer, which it never will be.

Questions for Ken

Ellie Keen — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:54:04 +0000

London mayor Ken Livingstone can justifiably boast that he has done much over the last 30 years to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Londoners. As leader of the Greater London council in the 1980s, he was the first major politician to speak out publicly in support of gay human rights. His funding of previously unsupported LGBT welfare and advice agencies was trailblazing and immensely positive.

In his first term as mayor of London, Livingstone set up the UK’s first same-sex partnership register, which paved the way for the subsequent legislation of civil partnerships. But during his second term as mayor, he caused widespread dismay in the LGBT community when he welcomed to City Hall as his “honoured guest” Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The mayor subsequently repeatedly excused and defended the viciously homophobic and murder-inciting cleric.

Qaradawi supports the execution of gay people in Islamic states, the killing of Muslims who abandon their faith, wife-beating, female genital mutilation, forcing women to wear the hijab, terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in Israel and the flogging of women who have sex outside of marriage. He also said the 2004 Asian tsunami was punishment by God because the people who died had allowed their countries to become centres of “sexual perversion”.

Together with many other people, I criticised Livingstone over his embrace of Qaradawi. He responded with the wholly untrue claim that I am an “Islamophobe” and a person with “a long history of Islamophobia”.

Since then, despite an occasional pro-gay initiative, like opposing Westminster council’s attempt to ban rainbow flags in Soho, Livingstone’s record of supporting the LGBT community has been somewhat patchy.

LGBT Londoners are, of course, not only interested in LGBT policies. Like the rest of London, they are also concerned about transport, crime, housing and the environment, as well as the candidates’ stance on matters that specifically affect lesbian and gay people.

On four issues Livingstone needs to explain why he has let down the LGBT community. The other mayoral candidates also need to state where they stand. What are the Conservative, Lib Dem and Green policies on these questions?

Refusal to fund the gay football world championships in London

Livingstone has refused to contribute to the funding of the 2008 international gay and lesbian football association world championship, which is being held in London in August. London has won the honour of being the host city, and the UK’s Stonewall FC team is a strong contender for the world title, but the mayor is withholding financial backing.

Livingstone also refused to sign a letter of support for the associations’s grant application to the lottery fund. Having the high-profile support of the mayor would increase the likelihood of the grant succeeding. It costs nothing to sign a letter of support.

The unexpected lack of financial assistance from the mayor has contributed to the association being left with a funding shortfall. How does the mayor justify this denial of a few thousand pounds to the gay football world championships when he has showered billions on the 2012 Olympics? Where do the other mayoral candidates stand on funding the gay football world cup and similar gay sporting events? And will they offer financial support to increase youth, women’s, disabled and ethnic minority participation in sport?

Lesbian and gay museum

During the 2004 Mayoral election campaign, Livingstone promised to fund a lesbian and gay museum, which is now called Proud Heritage. The idea is to add to the diversity of London’s museums by creating a new institution dedicated to documenting and celebrating the lives and contributions of LGBT people, in a similar way to the existing specialist Jewish, children’s and slavery museums.

It took until 2007 for Livingstone to grant a rather modest start-up grant of £5,000. Further money was pledged. Proud Heritage made a bid for an additional £10,000, so it could launch the first stage online version of the museum this week. The mayor eventually agreed a further £5,000. This money has been contracted by Livingstone but not delivered as of 15 April. Why not?

On the basis of Livingstone’s contracted £5,000 grant, Proud Heritage organised development work. This work on the website, which opens on April 18, has not been completed because Livingstone’s money has not materialised. This has created needless last-minute stress for the Proud Heritage organisers.

Why has Livingstone delayed his election pledge on the lesbian and gay museum? Why, four years after his promise, has the Proud Heritage project been underfunded by the mayor? What will other candidates pledge towards this project?

Proud Heritage is, so far, only an online museum. Will the mayoral candidates support and help finance a physical LGBT museum as well?

Mayor’s LGBT forum

The mayor’s LGBT forum was set up to liaise with the LGBT community. But from the outset it has been structured in a wholly undemocratic way.

Why isn’t the forum allowed to elect its own chair? Why did Livingstone impose as chair one of his own people, a straight woman, Anni Marjoram? Why is the LGBT forum banned from proposing resolutions or holding votes on policy recommendations to the mayor?

Attempts to propose and vote on policy issues are ruled out of order by the chair. This has disillusioned many of us who proposed and backed the forum as an open, democratic space for dialogue and consultation.

The forum is now widely dismissed as a PR exercise, with no real power or influence. Many grassroots activists no longer bother to attend. What is the point? Anything that questions mayoral policy doesn’t get on the agenda and uncomfortable debates are curtailed by the chair.

How does the mayor explain the fact that many grassroots LGBT campaigners in London no longer participate in the forum? What does he say to allegations that it has become an unrepresentative forum attended mostly by pro-Livingstone factions and LGBT groups hoping to get money out of the Greater London authority? What would other mayoral candidates do to rectify this democratic deficit?

Underfunding of LGBT groups and events

The mayor has given millions to black projects, which is a very good thing. The empowerment of ethnic communities is vital to redress social exclusion and discrimination. But Livingstone has granted comparatively little to LGBT projects. The mayor keeps promising LGBT funding but he seems rarely to deliver. He is quite good at verbal support, but little more.

How does Livingstone justify the millions of pounds he and the London development agency have given to black community groups and the largesse provided for the St Patrick’s Day events, compared to the much smaller grants that he has given to Pride London and LGBT community organisations?

In 2006, the mayor gave £175,000 to the St Patrick’s Day festival and £288,000 to the Rise festival – but only £100,000 for the LGBT Pride London festival.

I don’t begrudge support for Irish, Black, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Muslim and women’s groups and events. The mayor has duty to support all of London’s wonderful diverse communities. He is right to do so. It helps create a more liberal, tolerant and cohesive city.

But shouldn’t there be a more equitable distribution of mayoral funding, with all community events receiving roughly similar levels of financial backing? Or at least there should not be such huge disparities in the mayor’s financial support. Where do the other candidates stand on this question?

Livingstone’s mishandling of these four issues has implications way beyond the LGBT community. It is symptomatic of a style of governance that adversely impacts on many Londoners. As well as Livingstone, all the mayoral candidates need to address this issue, so Londoners know what they will do if they are elected mayor on May 1.

A Bloody Disgrace

Ellie Keen — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:27:57 +0000

Cradling my niece in my arms, she was white as a sheet and lying lifeless with the sedative effects of the medication — and only 3 weeks into this world. Heartache, uncertainty and concern.

A week later, two blood transfusions done and dusted, she lay in her incubator with a smile on her face and a glint in her eye.

It was at that point I decided to sign the register and give the gift of life — perhaps replace some of the blood she had so kindly been given and maybe save a few other lives along the way. It was nothing, a thirty-minute appointment, chocolate biscuits and a drink of orange juice — simple?

So you would think. I cannot give blood. My disease? I’m gay.

Gay and bisexual men in Britain cannot give blood as we are seen as a high risk of blood-borne infection and disease. The blood transfusion service claim “it’s not about being gay and bisexual, its about the act of having sex with another man and the risk involved”.

Hmmmm, that sounds gay to me.

Since the 1980s, the British government has tried to brush AIDS and HIV under the carpet and affix this disease firmly to the gay community. A scary shadow of homosexuality that dare not show its face in modern day blood transfusions.

Britain has seen a massive increase of cases of AIDS and HIV since the 1980s and surprisingly (for the government) this has been in the heterosexual community.

The British transfusion services have for years denied the gay community the option to give the gift of life, and instead have put the lives of British citizens at risk, should there be a major disaster and thousands of people needing blood.

Being gay means that you will bed hop, have multiple sexual partners and take risks no more than heterosexual people will.

The government must change this outdated, homophobic and offensive law and allow gay and bisexual people to give the gift of life.

I ask for support in the campaign to overturn this discriminatory situation. Please sign an online petition at . You can also join the bebo group at .

[Robert McDowell is a member of Scottish Socialist Youth, and can be contacted at .]

London's OutRage! Leader Blocks Pakistani Strongman's Limo

Ellie Keen — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:47:03 +0000

Britain’s best-known gay activist, Peter Tatchell, confronted Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf this past weekend when the dictator arrived in London on the last leg of his European tour, blocking the general’s car with his body repeatedly to protest "the suppression of democracy and human rights" by the military strongman.

Tatchell, who this year marks the 40th anniversary of his start as an activist, undertook the protest against Musharraf even though he is still suffering the physical after-effects of the severe beating he received last year in Moscow when a crowd of fascist thugs, egged on by the police, violently broke up an attempted Gay Pride demonstration in front of Moscow’s City Hall that Tatchell had gone to Russia to support (see this reporter’s May 31-Jun. 5, 2007 article, "The Agony of Moscow Pride").

"I’ve still got cognition and physical cordination problems, loss of vision, and memory holes" as a result of the Moscow beating, Tatchell, head of the militant UK queer rights group OutRage!, told Gay City News by telephone from London. He added, "First my doctors told me I’d be alright in a month, then they said three months, and now they’re telling me these problems may never go away."

The ambush of Musharraf happened outside London’s Hilton Hotel Park Lane on January 25, as the Pakistani president’s motorcade drew close to the hotel, where he was scheduled to speak.

"To avert police attention, I stood inconspicuously at a bus stop reading a newspaper, waiting for Musharraf’s motorcade to arrive," said Tatchell. "When the police motorcycle escorts drew level, I ran out into Park Lane and straight in front of the president’s car. It screeched to a halt. I unfurled a placard protesting against Musharraf’s massacre of civilians in occupied Baluchistan. The placard read: ‘Stop Pakistan Massacre of Baluch people.’"

Tatchell got his message across to the Pakistani dictator.

"Musharraf could clearly see the placard, and he did not look pleased," he said. "His driver tried to back up and drive around me, but I ran in front of the limousine again, forcing it to halt once more. I could see Musharraf shouting something at his driver. Perhaps he feared that I was an assassin or a suicide bomber."

Then, said Tatchell, "The limo reversed again and tried to swerve past me. I blocked it for the third time. Musharraf and his colleagues looked very agitated. Eventually, police motorcycle escorts ran over and dragged me away from the bonnet of Musharraf’s vehicle."

Pulled across the road by police, Tatchell was pinned against a railing. He was soon released by police, allowing him to join the main anti-Musharraf demonstration outside the Hilton, organized by lawyers protesting the arrest of their colleagues and of Supreme Court judges in Pakistan.

This is not the first time Tatchell has personally confronted a dictator. He became a national hero in Britain when, on October 30, 1999, he and three other OutRage! activists ambushed Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe’s car in a London street and attempted to perform a citizen’s arrest of him on charges of crimes in violation of United Nations human rights conventions. Tatchell opened the car door, seized Mugabe, and then summoned police. Mugabe was not taken into custody; instead all four OutRage! activists were arrested and Tatchell was charged with assault.

Mugabe is a ruthless tyrant who has used violence and imprisonment against political opponents. He is also a notorious anti-gay demagogue — he has said that gays and lesbians "are worse than pigs and dogs" — who criminalized homosexuality and authorized his political gangs to engage in street lynchings of gay Zimbabweans.

Tatchell tried again twice to perform a citizen’s arrest on Mugabe — first in Belgium in 2001, when he was beaten unconscious by the dictator’s bodyguards, causing him serious permanent damage to one eye; and then again in Paris in 2003, when Tatchell was arrested by the French police.

As The Independent, a British daily, noted in a recent profile of Tatchell, he "was once perhaps the most execrated man in British politics. He was — to restrict ourselves to quotations from just one newspaper, the Daily Mail — ‘loony,’ ‘scabrous,’ ‘repellent,’ ‘repulsive,’ ‘sour,’ ‘humourless,’ ‘obnoxious,’ and a ‘homosexual terrorist.’"

These epithets came after Tatchell led protests that disrupted church services led by the homophobic archbishop of Canterbury and threatened to out both Church of England bishops and conservative homosexual members of Parliament who voted against gay rights legislation.

But since his attempts to arrest Mugabe, "Tatchell has variously been called ‘a national hero’ (the Sunday Times), ‘a civil rights campaigner we can all applaud’ (Sunday Telegraph), and ‘Heroic… an example to us all’ (Daily Mail)," The Independent noted.

As Tatchell marked his fourth decade of militant human rights activism with the Musharraf protest, Gay City News asked prominent British gays to assess his contribution.

"Sometimes infuriating, often imbued with a great theatrically, Peter’s work has helped keep moving forward the cause of gay emancipation enormously," according to Joe Galliano, editor of Gay Times, the glossy monthly magazine that is the largest British gay publication. Galliano added, "Peter is one of the very few campaigners to make the intellectual leap that gay rights can only properly come through better respect of human rights for all."

Brian Whitaker, author of "Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East" and a senior editor at The Guardian, a British daily that regularly publishes Tatchell’s commentaries on gay and human rights, told Gay City News, "Peter is a sort of one-man Great British Institution, even though he came from Australia — if he didn’t exist he’d have to be invented."

Whitaker went on to say, "I don’t always agree with him and sometimes he goes a bit over the top, but he’s courageous and absolutely sincere in what he does and many people admire him for that. One thing troubles me a bit — he’s such an effective campaigner that other gay people tend to let him get on with it and don’t become involved in activism themselves. They can send ten quid to OutRage!, then carry on partying with a clear conscience."

The son of a lathe worker, Tatchell began his political activity when, as a Melbourne, Australia high school student in 1967, he organized a campaign on behalf of the indigenous Aboriginal population, who faced severe discrimination at the time. Although his fellow students recognized that he was gay, he proved popular with them. Tatchell was elected student body president, or "head boy."

The next year, Tatchell joined the movement against Australia’s involvement as a US ally in Viet Nam, and led campaigns urging other young men to refuse to be drafted. In August 1971 he emigrated to Britain to escape conscription. Five days after arriving in London, he attended a meeting of the recently organized Gay Liberation Front, and within a month he began organizing its campaigns.

In 1987, he was a founder of the UK AIDS Vigil pressure group and two years later started the London chapter of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, or ACT UP. In May 1990, he attended the founding meeting of OutRage!, formed in response to police inaction after the queer-bashing murder of actor Michael Boothe. Gay journalists and writers Simon Watney, Keith Alcorn, and Chris Woods initiated the group to wage a provocative campaign of direct action and civil disobedience for gay rights. Tatchell in time became OutRage!‘s leader.

"Peter Tatchell has been a huge and towering figure in British gay politics for the last quarter of a century," Neil McKenna, an openly gay journalist and historian, told Gay City News from London.

McKenna, who authored the groundbreaking, critically acclaimed 2005 revisionist biography, "The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde," which detailed the gay playwright’s little-known work as a pioneer activist for homosexual emancipation, said, "Peter has worked selflessly to bring about change, making many memorable protests. He has lived on the poverty line for three decades and has to rely on a network of support to feed himself and clothe himself. He is unique, extraordinary, principled, dedicated, and should be classified as a living national treasure, warts and all.

"My first encounter with him was when I was a cub reporter attending a Church of England General Synod which was debating the rights and wrongs of homosexuality," McKenna recalled. "Peter stood up in the public gallery circling the Synod and proceeded to denounce them. I wrote at the time that he stood up ‘like an Old Testament prophet’ and that image has stayed with me over the years. Peter Tatchell says things and does things which lots of people don’t always want to hear."

Tatchell has also been a pioneer in catalyzing international solidarity for oppressed LGBT people outside the West. In 1973, Tatchell was arrested in East Germany when he went there to help local activists stage what he says was the first public gay protest in a Communist country. In the 1980s, he traveled to Thailand to support the first wave of gay and AIDS activists in that country, and to El Salvador to highlight the violent attacks on that country’s gays and lesbians amidst a bloody civil war, during which the US gave aid to the right-wing patrons of the authoritarian regime’s death squads. He’s traveled to Malawi to protest the semi-slave labor of children on British-owned tea estates; to New Guinea to protest the Indonesian massacre of indigenous peoples in West Papua; to Latvia for banned 2006 Gay Pride observances that were violently attacked by religious extremists (see this reporter’s Jul. 27-Aug. 1, 2006 article "The Siege of Riga," a link to which appears in the web version of this article); and to Memphis to confront boxer Mike Tyson after the pugilist gay-baited heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis.

"I am often asked a question on who is my hero, whom I want to be like and I can answer for sure that Peter Tatchell is my hero, he is my ideal in fighting for LGBT rights in the world," said Nicolai Alexeyev, the courageous young Russian lawyer who has been the principal organizer of Moscow Pride. And Alexeyev went on to say, "When I just started my activist work in Russia in 2005, it was Peter who was an inspiration to me. I tried to build our work here in Russia on the principles of his work in the UK. I think he is one of the most outstanding human rights and LGBT activits in the contemporary world, who is courageous and smart at the same time. I am extremely thankful to destiny that I got acquainted with Peter. He is a person of very high standing who is totally devoted to human rights and equality for everyone."

One of Tatchell’s most attention-getting protests came at the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, where he held up a sign that read, "Charles Can Marry Twice, Gays Can’t Marry Once!"

Tatchell’s flair for attracting media attention to his causes, which draws charges he’s a publicity hound, includes writing a constant stream of articles for both the mainstream and gay press.

In 2002 he launched the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund to support his campaigning work around the world.

"Peter is a world leader when it comes to LGBT human rights activism," UK Gay News editor Andy Harley told Gay City News, adding that "last year when he was seriously assaulted during Moscow Gay Pride, the first group who condemned the attack, and expressed support and good wishes for a speedy recovery, were exiled Ahwazi Arabs, a persecuted ethnic minority in Iran. They described Peter Tatchell as ‘an icon in human rights.’ This speaks volumes, coming from a Muslim group that has been supported by Peter."

French black civil rights leader, scholar, and author Louis-Georges Tin, who is also the founder of the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) — celebrated in over 50 countries last year — told Gay City News from Paris, "Peter Tatchell invented a new mode for gay activism, flamboyant and pragmatic at the same time, offensive and full of humor. As the apostle of this new genre of protests, he has sacrificed nearly everything — his private life, his material comfort, his physical security — to defend human rights in England and the entire world. When will he be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize he deserves?"

Ex-pat British author Christopher Hitchens, a Vanity Fair columnist, told this reporter, "Peter Tatchell has made an exemplary effort, in his life and in his writing, to give expression to a consistent and international ethic of human rights and human dignity."

And Sir Elton John recently said of Tatchell, "He’s incredibly brave… doing good work in a world where most people are too timid. He keeps sticking at it."

Peter, we salute you!