On What Politics Could Be

by Brian Leubitz

I’m something of a leftist, just read my writing at Calitics, and you’ll set that pretty clearly. However, I am a big fan of (small “d”) democracy, more than I am of any political party or movement. Democracy has its fair share of problems, many of which stem from too much private money sloshing around the system, but all in all, it’s a pretty good system. Or perhaps I should let Sir Winson Churchill put it more cynically. “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

So, it is with that I turn my attention to the Cato Institute’s Forum on whether there is a place for the LGBT community within the conservative movement. The headline of the act was a Maggie Gallagher vs. Andrew Sullivan battle royale. And I’ll get to that at some point, but my point here is a different one. Check out the audio of the at TheNewCivilRightsMovement, and pay particular attention to the first speaker.

He is British MP Nick Herbert. And earlier this year, he was “civilly partnered” in Britain. But what would be unthinkable here in America, is the fact that he is a Tory, a member of Britain’s Conservative Party. Herbert isn’t the only prominent gay Tory MP to “marry”; earlier this year MP Alan Duncan “married” his long-time partner.  And Herbert believes that the Tories are rapidly becoming as welcoming to the LGBT community as the Labour Party.

‘For the modern Conservative Party, embracing gay equality is neither a temporary phenomenon, nor an agenda which can be reversed.’

[MP Nick Herbert’s] words follow the recent apology by David Cameron over Section 28, the controversial law, passed by the Conservative government in 1988, which banned local councils from promoting homosexuality.

The Tory leader insisted that his party had “changed,” and now believed that homosexual men and women, and civil partnerships between same sex couples, were of equal value to heterosexual relationships and marriages. (Telegraph)

In fact, if the Tories fare well in the next elections for Parliament, which it is looking very likely, there will be more LGBT MPs from the Conservative Party than from the Labour Party.  That is not to say that the Tories don’t have a ways to go on rights for LGBTs in Britain, but they are miles ahead of both the Democratic and Republican parties here in the States.  And frankly, for a nation that once prided itself on producing a melting pot where all were welcome, that is rather disappointing.

Of course, at the same time, the quotes around marry are both demeaning and offensive. And here, neither the Labour or Conservative parties could go that final step to marriage. It is discriminatory and offensive, but as a practical matter, in the UK, gay “married” partners have the same rights as straight married partners.  Minus the air quotes.

The LGBT community will be far better served when one party doesn’t try to suck votes by simply grandstanding to ignorance, and we can support them based on more than a handful of issues. But, there is a threshold question of whether we are respected as human beings. And as long as the LGBT is not respected in one party or another, I suspect a vast majority of votes will continue to stay in one column.