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May 11, 2023, Baroness Hoey’s amendment on gay history did not connect with the Lords!
Sadly none of the gay peers offered to help Kate go to a vote on her amendment so she didn’t press for a division.
It would have been great watching the progressive peers in turmoil wondering whether to vote for or against a gay matter.
There was also zero interest in intersectional circles in Belfast and the BBC was unusually mute on her amendment despite their gay staffers.
…
Gay history amendment draft remarks for Baroness Hoey submitted by Jeff Dudgeon
My second amendment, number 118 to Clause 46, refers to the Bill’s required production of
an analysis of patterns and themes in events during the Troubles. It adds to the specific
mention of women and girls, research on the experience of the gay and lesbian community.
This is a small minority, just 2% of our people according to the recent census figure, but it
figured centrally in disputes and debates throughout the decades, perhaps more so than any
other group outside the two main communities.
The process from decriminalisation to now gay equality was effected in a long series of
legislative steps, always at Westminster.
I played, as I said at Committee, a small part in 1994 with an amendment to keep Northern
Ireland in line with the rest of Britain on the gay age of consent. Tony Blair, who was then
Shadow Home Secretary, helped me whip sufficient support from MPs across the parties,
enabling my amendment to win by 254 votes to 141.
The particular reason why the gay community’s experience needs addressing is that it
suffered, as we all did, from death and injury through killings, bombings and shootings by
illegal organisations. But it then had, separately, to face those organisations when they
brought further death and destruction – specifically to the gay community.
That even occurred after the 1995 ceasefires, in the case of a police officer, who was
murdered by the INLA in 1997 and the Reverend David Templeton by the UVF, both in 1997.
Their killings followed a series of bombings of gay venues over thirty years by the IRA and
loyalist paramilitaries, and of murders of gay men – often picked off the street – especially in
the darkest days of the 1970s.
I note for the record Strasbourg is not calling for reinvestigation in these cases.
Academic research can provide not just a record of those events but a valuable analysis of
how life amidst death was experienced.
I sincerely hope that the Minister will look favourably on the matter and provide more
reassurance than at Committee when he said, “The provisions of the Bill as drafted would not
preclude relevant research into LGBT experiences.”
Inclusion is needed not a lack of precluding such research.
Indeed if the NIO is requiring in draft regulations – as it is this month – that our schools
update their teaching on sexuality, it seems necessary and consistent for this amendment to
go into the Bill.
an analysis of patterns and themes in events during the Troubles. It adds to the specific
mention of women and girls, research on the experience of the gay and lesbian community.
This is a small minority, just 2% of our people according to the recent census figure, but it
figured centrally in disputes and debates throughout the decades, perhaps more so than any
other group outside the two main communities.
The process from decriminalisation to now gay equality was effected in a long series of
legislative steps, always at Westminster.
I played, as I said at Committee, a small part in 1994 with an amendment to keep Northern
Ireland in line with the rest of Britain on the gay age of consent. Tony Blair, who was then
Shadow Home Secretary, helped me whip sufficient support from MPs across the parties,
enabling my amendment to win by 254 votes to 141.
The particular reason why the gay community’s experience needs addressing is that it
suffered, as we all did, from death and injury through killings, bombings and shootings by
illegal organisations. But it then had, separately, to face those organisations when they
brought further death and destruction – specifically to the gay community.
That even occurred after the 1995 ceasefires, in the case of a police officer, who was
murdered by the INLA in 1997 and the Reverend David Templeton by the UVF, both in 1997.
Their killings followed a series of bombings of gay venues over thirty years by the IRA and
loyalist paramilitaries, and of murders of gay men – often picked off the street – especially in
the darkest days of the 1970s.
I note for the record Strasbourg is not calling for reinvestigation in these cases.
Academic research can provide not just a record of those events but a valuable analysis of
how life amidst death was experienced.
I sincerely hope that the Minister will look favourably on the matter and provide more
reassurance than at Committee when he said, “The provisions of the Bill as drafted would not
preclude relevant research into LGBT experiences.”
Inclusion is needed not a lack of precluding such research.
Indeed if the NIO is requiring in draft regulations – as it is this month – that our schools
update their teaching on sexuality, it seems necessary and consistent for this amendment to
go into the Bill.
END
Links:
- Twitter – Jeff Dudgeon – Hansard
- Wikipedia – Kate Hoey, Baroness
- Gayfest 82
I discussed how we might reform the House of Lords, even the House of Commons with Sean McGouran last weekend. The surprising thing was that I was the one coming up with radical ideas!
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