The March LGBT reception at Number 10. No Peter Tatchell, and no Downing Street denial that Gordon Brown intervened to bar him.
Peter Tatchell Excluded from two Downing Street LGBT Meetings - is Gordon Brown Getting Personal?
Peter Tatchell "Those invited are mostly...tame apologists for new Labour"
Peter Tatchell has alleged that he was barred from a LGBT Downing Street reception in March after Gordon Brown’s personal intervention. Tatchell also considers he has not been invited to a Downing Street Pride reception to be held on the morning of Pride London on Saturday because he is a critic of the government’s record on LGBT rights.
Speaking yesterday about the March reception Peter Tatchell said:
“An insider tipped me off that my name had been removed from the invite list, at Gordon Brown’s personal request. He was apparently still angry that I had heckled him over his government’s erosion of civil liberties, when he opened the Taking Liberties exhibition at the British Library late last year.”
Speaking to the Mothership Blog today, a Downing Street spokesman refused to deny that Gordon Brown had personally intervened to exclude Tatchell. However, speaking of this Saturday’s pre-pride Downing Street meeting he added
“This is not a reception but a small meeting where the Prime Minister and Sarah Brown can meet the Pride organising committee members and the Pink Press.”
Pride London 2008
Peter Tatchell is arguably the UK’s leading campaigner for gay rights and he has been involved in the gay movement for 40 years. He was also one of the people who organised the very first London Pride in 1972.
He has been critical that the government appears reluctant to tackle remaining LGBT rights issues such as:
* civil partnerships not having equal status to marriages (”a form of sexual apartheid”)
* gay and bisexual man being prevented from giving blood (even if HIV negative and always practice safe sex)
* work permits and visas granted to reggae singers who incite violence to gays
* harrassment protection for gays and lesbians is excluded from the government’s Equality Bill
- Peter Tatchell won’t be passing through this door on Saturday
Tatchell went on to say
“Labour’s many commendable gay law reforms are no excuse for its stonewalling on the abolition of these remaining aspects of homophobic discrimination…I don’t do my human rights work to win awards, honours or invites. It doesn’t matter to me that I haven’t been invited. What angers me is the principle - the way the Prime Minister invites and fetes mostly tame pro-Labour loyalists in the LGBT community.”
A Downing Street spokesman responded
“The government’s record is enviable in promoting equal rights for the gay community and just look at the differences in the rights gay people have now compared to the late 1990s.”
WE SAY: come on Gordon! Lighten up and send him an invite! We’re sure Sarah’s charm can defuse any hostilities, and if you don’t you may find yourself subject to a Mugabe-style citizen’s arrest!
by David Abrehart
(c) Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
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July 1st, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Well this doesn’t surprise me. Gordon Brown has an insatiable urge to eliminate ANY and ALL dissenters.
He surrounds himself with bully boys like Damien McBride because he believes that it’s better to demolish and demean those who oppose him than it would be to debate with them.
Downing Street seem keen to point out all that the government has done for the gay community but maybe someone should remind them that this was actioned during Blair’s premiership and not his. Brown is keen to take credit for the positive aspects of Blair’s government but he then distances himself from the controversial and unpopular policy’s of the last decade.
Peter Tatchell shouldn’t worry too much because Brown will soon be thrown from office only to find himself in history books of the future under the heading “The man who destroyed the Labour Party.”