A recent Stonewall survey of gay, lesbian and bisexual people found that their respondents expected to find less prejudice from the Lib Dems than from either of the other two main parties, should they wish to stand for parliament.
The Guardian reports:
The poll also suggested prejudice is endemic in political life, with most lesbian and gay people expecting discrimination if they seek selection by a party to run for parliament. Nearly nine in 10 think they would face such barriers from the Conservative party, 61% from the Labour party and 47% from the Liberal Democrats.
It’s still a little concerning that nearly half of the gay people surveyed think they would face prejudice from us. For the record, we have been so proud of our out gay PPCs in past general elections that DELGA, our campaigning organisation for lesbian gay and transgender LGBTQ equality, has published lists of gay candidates. “Equality” is the 26th word in the preamble to our constitution and the third paragraph states
Upholding these values of individual and social justice, we reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.
There’s more discussion about Stonewall’s report on Comment is Free.
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14 Comments
“DELGA, our campaigning organisation for lesbian gay and transgender equality”
*polite cough* and bisexuals too.
Not forgetting that the current Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London is openly Gay.
This doesn’t prove anything. If it was a survey about the actual amount of homophobia experienced by actual candidates, then it might mean something, but it’s a survey of people the overwhelming majority of whom have no experience of trying to get selected for anything by any party.
In other words what is being asked is whether the stereotypical Lib Dem is more or less prejudiced than the stereotypical Labour or Conservative Party member. This is an utterly meaningless finding.
I think the relative perceptions of our parties is an interesting thing worth commenting on, David, and I’m sorry you don’t appear to agree.
Nice try David. If it had been published by Labour no doubt it would have been deeply significant…
“This doesn’t prove anything. If it was a survey about the actual amount of homophobia experienced by actual candidates, then it might mean something, but it’s a survey of people the overwhelming majority of whom have no experience of trying to get selected for anything by any party.”
What it proves is exactly that Lib Dems have the image of the Gay-friendliest party among the people the overwhelming majority of whom have no experience of trying to get selected for anything by any party.
Well there wasn’t any in my selection or, if there was, it totally passed me by!
Ummm… There wasn’t any gays or any prejudice?
I suppose when you have Labour sending gay people back to face the death penalty in Iran you can understand why they aren’t viewed in exactly glowing terms by members of the LGBTQ community.
I like the fact that at the bottom of the comments there’s an ad for a gay dating site. I’m just going to read the cookie to see if there’s a line saying gay=yes 😉
I see two ads to gay hotels, so I suppose they use the same technology than Googlemail and scan the text for key words and then place related ads.
And after I sent that, the page was reloaded and I got a link to a gay fitness community…
I’m getting a big purple banner saying “Pre-order here!” and a picture of a woman I don’t recognise, who appears to have antlers.
I have no idea what this is about, but I’m clicking it anyway. Thank heavens we aren’t getting all referendum ads any more.
Now were on to “Blackpool hotels and B&Bs” and “English Democrats Party” so I’m not so sure about the algorithm 🙂