12 Comments

• Lorenzo Cherin 15th Feb '16 - 12:37am

  Superb for Valentines Day !A credit to our party and to Liberal Democrats the world over !

• Eddie Sammon 15th Feb '16 - 8:59am

  I think this is fine. For people who say it is stealing voices from people of colour: I think the more voices on this the better. My only concern when it comes to racism on these kinds of campaigns is for accuracy with figures. If we get any figures wrong then we have contributed towards prejudices about other cultures, even without intention. I have seen questionable figures in the past in other areas when it comes to campaigns based on things happening in Africa and the Middle East and we need to be really careful about this.

• Lorenzo Cherin 15th Feb '16 - 1:39pm

  Eddie
  As a genuine human rights advocate of any of us should be mindful of the sort of caveat you mention,however,the origin or nationality or ethnicity of whoever is practicing appalling discrimination, is a side show when the main event is , or should be here , people are still regularly imprisoned and can be executed in some countries for love of another consenting adult.

  When we see evil it makes not one difference what origin that evil has in any way other than trying to decipher how it can it be defeated and overcome .If Martin Luther King were alive now , he would be marching for and with the community of the cause for LGBT !

• Lorenzo Cherin 15th Feb '16 - 1:44pm

  P.S .figures are important , facts more so , it is a fact that so many of the countries of the world do this and it is an outrage !

• Eddie Sammon 15th Feb '16 - 6:07pm

  Thanks Lorenzo. By the way, the sign that says “we all have the right”, with the heart for the V, I thought it said “we all hate the right” at first. Probably best to make it clearer in future. 🙂

• Allan Brame 15th Feb '16 - 8:02pm

  We all hate the right sounds ok to me!

• Rsf7 15th Feb '16 - 8:42pm

  I don’t get it.

  You’re protesting countries who treat homosexuals badly.

  The reason those countries treat homosexuals badly is because the populations of those countries have religious and/or cultural beliefs that say homosexuals should be treated badly.

  And yet out of all the mainstream political parties the lib dems are the most in favour of immigration from those said countries?

  Do you think the mass migration to Germany for example will have made German society more or less tolerant of homosexuality?

• David Faggiani 16th Feb '16 - 11:23am

  Well, Rsf7, I get the point you’re making, but surely Britain over the last 60 years has experienced the biggest immigration influx in its history by quite a long way, and has become vastly more tolerant to homosexuality and other ‘minority’ practices at the same time? In other words, some currents are too powerful to be held back by the drip-drop of counter-reform figures. Also, are you suggesting we propose stringent ideological tests for individuals, on their entry? The only obvious alternative proposal springing from your point seems to be to declare that some countries produce ‘intellectually unacceptable’ people, across the board, and that none of these people will never be allowed to move to the UK, until a safe twenty or thirty years of regime change has taken hold, anyway? I don’t ask to troll, I just want to clarify!

  Also, surely protesting intolerant attitudes abroad (if protest has an impact) will lead to fewer emigrants from those countries, all other factors being equal, as the Governments in question become more tolerant of their citizens? One of the reasons people come to Britain is its relative liberal tolerance. The more the world liberalises, by an agreed definition of the term, the less reason there will be to move to other countries, at least for reasons of urgency, or danger.

• Stuart 16th Feb '16 - 10:55pm

  @David Faggiani

  “Well, Rsf7, I get the point you’re making, but surely Britain over the last 60 years has experienced the biggest immigration influx in its history by quite a long way, and has become vastly more tolerant to homosexuality and other ‘minority’ practices at the same time?”

  A Gallup poll in 2009 found that 100% (that’s one hundred per cent) of UK Muslims disapproved of homosexuality. Presumably at least some of the people surveyed were young, had lived here all their lives, and were from third or fourth generation immigrant families, but Gallup couldn’t find a single one who was not homophobic. The main reason social liberalism has spread so successfully in western societies is because we have become so secularised. It doesn’t matter how long people live here – if they retain their religious devotion, they’re going to be immune to the spread of liberalism you talk about.

• Joe Otten 17th Feb '16 - 1:38am

  Stuart, the same report http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/may/07/muslims-britain-france-germany-homosexuality suggests 35% of French muslims find homosexual acts acceptable. So there is clearly something going on other than ongoing religious devotion.

  My first guess would be different sampling strategies.

• Richard Underhill 17th Feb '16 - 8:15am

  Jo, Please note that the UK has received a large number of European Muslims from Bosnia as a consequence of granting them all Exceptional Leave to Enter or Remain during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. These are collectively the most tolerant.

• Stuart 17th Feb '16 - 8:52am

  @Joe
  Of course there are other factors, but do you doubt that religion is the most significant?