IDAHOBIT Day #LGBT

It’s not often you will hear me agreeing with a conservative party politician. But I’ve all praise for the excellent speech by our Prime Minister, David Cameron, for the International Day of Awareness ~ Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.

Here is just a little of what he thinks should be the government’s focus for the future:

I think laws and practises help change culture, but to change culture you need to change the way people think, you need to change the way government works, and you need to change the way institutions work.

That’s why I think it’s right that there’s such a high emphasis now on dealing with homophobic bullying and transphobic bullying and all the problems that go on at schools and colleges.

We’ve put money into that, but I think we need to keep working with all of you to make sure we really deliver on that agenda.

But if there was one thing I wanted to pull out, and say the government can do more and do better over this Parliament – alongside change law, change practise, change culture, it would be the ambitious change the world. We may feel that this is a good country to be gay or to be bi or to be transgender, but in the rest of the world, many countries are a totally miserable place to be LGBT.

Just take one fact: the Commonwealth that we’re proud to be a member of and HM The Queen is the head of.

Of the 53 countries in the Commonwealth, 40 still have legislation that in some way disadvantages people that are gay.

We are hosting the Commonwealth Conference here in London in 2018 and I think there’s a good opportunity between now and then to encourage countries to take the steps that we have taken here.

 

Miserable is an understatement. You can watch documentaries on You Tube showing the sort of lives LGBT people face in some of the more hostile parts of the world due to state laws and prejudice.

It’s illegal to be lesbian/gay in many parts of the world (including the country chosen to host the 2022 World Cup – how disgraceful).

Several counties in the world implement the death penalty for homosexual activity! This is so wrong and so shocking.

You can read David Cameron’s words in full  here:

 http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/05/17/david-cameron-i-want-to-change-the-world-on-global-lgbt-rights/