Editorial : Be careful who you vote for. Educate yourself and your friends.

The Firemen on 22 April 2015 , 8:23 pm

Research conducted by Ruth McCarthy highlights some stark differences between the parties contesting this years Westminster elections in Northern Ireland on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues.
LGBT Isues

A series of questions were asked:

1a Does your party visibly support LGBTQ equality issues in your party manifesto, on your website and in election campaigning materials?
If YES, please give examples. If NO, please state why.
1b Please give any other examples of how your party supports LGBTQ visibility.
2a What is your party policy on tackling homophobia and transphobia through education and training in schools?
2b What is your party’s record in actively tackling homophobia and transphobia through education and training in schools?
3a What is your party’s policy on addressing the serious health inequalities faced by LGBTQ people?
3b What is your party’s record in actively addressing the serious health inequalities faced by LGBTQ people?
4a Does your party support Equal Marriage for same-sex couples in Northern Ireland?
4b What is your party’s record in actively supporting Equal Marriage for same-sex couples?
5a Does your party support the Conscience Clause? 5b What is your party’s record in actively opposing the Conscience Clause?
6a Does your party support a total ban on gay men giving blood?
6b What’s your party’s track record in opposing the blood ban for gay men?
7 Does your party have any LGBTQ-identified candidates standing in the 2015 General Election?
8 Does your party have any mandatory training or education for staff around LGBTQ issues? If NO, do you plan to change this? Please outline when.
9 Trans communities in the UK And Ireland have united to produce a simple three point manifesto that they
are asking all 2015 Election candidates to support or decline. It takes less than a minute to read and you can find it at www.transmanifesto.org.uk
Does your party support or decline the three main principles?
A few samples on the question “Does your party support Equal Marriage for same-sex couples in Northern Ireland?”
SDLP:

The SDLP supports the equal marriage campaign and we believe that civil marriage should be available to all regardless of sexual orientation.

Sinn Fein:

Yes. Sinn Féin actively campaign for marriage equality north and south. Sinn Féin have put for- ward motions for marriage equality before the As- sembly and local councils across Ireland. Represent- atives from the Marriage Equality Campaign gave a keynote address at Sinn Féin Ard Fheis 2015 along- side elected representatives from Sinn Féin LGBT.

Green Party:

Yes. We support freedom of religion and freedom from religion. We believe that faith groups should be able to decide for themselves if they wish to solemnise same-sex weddings and this will work similarly to the recognition of divorce in the UK, whereby individual religious organisations can choose whether or not to recognise it or not, but it is state-recognised. We also support humanist groups being allowed to conduct same-sex marriages.

Alliance Party:

Yes/ Civil marriage should be available to same-sex couples on the same basis as different-sex couples. We do not believe that religious institutions should be required to conduct such marriages if they do not wish to do so.

DUP:

No. The DUP is opposed to marriage for same-sex couples and tabled a petition of concern ensuring the motion for Equality Marriage was blocked under the Northern Ireland Assembly’s cross- community voting rules. They blocked Marriage Equality motions a total of three times in 2013.

UUP:

No. Mike Nesbitt has stated that the party’s position on gay marriage was that it was a “matter of personal conscience”. Only one UUP MLA (Michael Copeland – Ed.) voted in favour of Equal Marriage. All others voted against or abstained.

TUV:

No. TUV supports “traditional family values” in its most recent manifesto and is outspokenly opposed to Equal Marriage. They also call for Civil Partnerships to be abolished.

Workers Party:

Yes. The Workers Party supports Marriage Equality.

UKIP:

No specific information. UKIP councillor David Silverster infamously claimed flooding in the UK in 2013 was God’s revenge for legalising gay marriage.

People Before Profit

Yes

Conservative Party of Northern Ireland:

No info available.

(N.B. ‘People Before Profit’ and the Ulster Unionist Party did not respond to the original survey questions. When we have them they will be uploaded and this post updated)
(Disclaimer: this survey was NOT conducted by Slugger O’Toole – we encourage any parties featured or not featured to contact us)
You can download the entire report here: LGBT NI Party Survey 2015 download

.@ukhomeoffice Refuse visas for US ‘gay cure’ preachers & stop the ‘Holy Sexuality Conference’

Omar Kuddus
Blackpool, United Kingdom

Sign the petition

On 21st April The Seventh Day Adventist Church plans to bring three speakers from the US to London to run a 5-day conference‘for people that have struggled with same-sex attraction’.
This conference will promote the dangerous view that homosexuality is something to be cured. It should not be allowed to take place in the UK.
Speakers include Mike Carducci, Wayne Blakely and Danielle Harrison, who all claim to have been cured of their gay lifestyles and work to encourage others to reject homosexuality. Online videos show Mike Carducci describing gay people as‘sexually defiled’.
Now UKIP candidate Alan Craig has also signed up to speak – he recently claimed same-sex marriage is a ‘democratic disgrace’.
The US speakers will use the conference to promote the dangerous idea that being gay is something that can be cured, through so-called ‘conversion’ therapy.
The UK Council for Psychotherapy has described conversion theory as abuse. Just last week President Obama called for an end to ‘gay conversion therapies’, acknowledging the potentially devastating effects on the lives of transgender as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer youth.
And Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: ‘If anything needs curing, it is the outdated belief that being gay is wrong or something to be ashamed of. Sexuality is not an illness but an inherent part of who you are.’
The Government has refused visas for preachers promoting discrimination in the past. Last year the Home Office denied a visa for so-called pick-up artist Julien Blanc to stop him hosting sexist seminars that promoted violence against women.
The Government should give the same protection to gay men and women, and deny the organisers of this conference visas.
There should be no place in the UK for people to teach that being gay is something that is wrong and should be cured.
Please sign & share this petition to stop this ‘gay cure’ conference.

Sign the petition

Editorial:

NIGRA has written before about the dangers that being gay is something to be cured. President Obama has called for an end to gay ‘conversion’ therapies. We are looking for similar leads from our own local politicians ad indeed other politicians within the UK – we don’t need to be cured, we just need to have equality!