Badpuppy Gay Today

Wednesday, 14 May 1997

Three open gays were elected to Britain's House of Commons May 1 in Labour's landslide over the Conservatives.

MP Chris Smith was re-elected in central London's Islington South and Finsbury with 62.5 percent of the vote. Prime Minister Tony Blair quickly appointed him Secretary for National Heritage, which oversees the arts, broadcasting, sports, tourism and the lottery.

That makes Smith Britain's first openly gay Cabinet member.

"I think that the fact that someone who is openly gay can be appointed to the Cabinet and can go into Buckingham Palace to kiss hands with the Queen as I did yesterday, without the slightest tremor of significance really being attached to it by the great majority of the press, shows that we have come a very considerable way in gaining acceptance from the British people," Smith said.

"Being open, being honest about your sexuality actually wins you support, it doesn't deny it to you."

In Exeter in England's West Country, BBC radio journalist Ben Bradshaw trounced homophobic opponent Dr. Adrian Roger, president of the Conservative Family Institute. Roger had called homosexuality "a sterile, disease-ridden occupation" and urged voters not to "let the pink flag fly over Exeter."

"Bigotry and prejudice have now been swept away in Britain, and our election shows that the majority of the British electorate want a society based on equality," Bradshaw said.

In Enfield Southgate (far northeast London suburbs) Fabian Society Secretary Stephen Twigg, 30, upset former Secretary of Defense Michael Portillo. The Fabian Society is an old-style Labour Party think-tank.

Twigg had not expected to win.

"It wasn't remotely a possibility for me," he said. "I was standing in a seat where we had a Cabinet minister with a majority of 15-and-a-half thousand. As far as I was concerned I was putting myself forward for the experience, standing in the area that I was born and brought up in. It was a great possibility just to get some experience and it was only during the campaign that I realized that there was a real possibility that we could win it.

"This is a very exciting period in our history and I anticipate major legislative reforms -- not only around gay and lesbian rights, but also significant reforms to the constitution and the democratic process itself."

Labour actively courted the gay vote with promises to lower the age-of-consent for male-male sex to equal that for lesbians and heterosexuals, ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, repeal Clause 28 (which prohibits local governments from promoting homosexuality), lift the military gay ban, and treat gay couples equally under immigration law.

"This whole country seems transformed by the election results," said activist and former International Lesbian and Gay Association Co-Secretary General Lisa Power. "People are going round grinning, all the cab drivers claim to be Labour supporters, there's a real air of optimism. Everybody loves the new government and can't understand why we put up with the Tories for so long. Chris has been made Heritage Secretary -- a homo in charge of the arts, yet."

(David Cook, John Hein, David Smith and Philip Reay-Smith contributed to this report)