Hope everyone had a nice time at the Gay Pride march yesterday. It must have been quite a laugh, with Boris "What a character" Johnson. That's the same Boris who supported the anti-gay legislation Section 28, and, this year, scrapped the annual Gay Pride mayoral reception at City Hall. However, he did go to the trouble of wearing a snazzy pink stetson to the 2008 Gay Pride march.
Theresa May was previously engaged at a parade for troops in her constituency. Or maybe she was sitting in a corner, musing on how she managed to snag the equality brief with a record on LGBT rights that includes voting against the repeal of Section 28 and against gay adoption. Maybe a part of her was rather relieved not to be at the Pride march, thereby avoiding being engaged in "challenging" conversations about all that.
Coalition leaders weren't there either, sending along Nick Herbert, the openly gay policing minister, and Lynne Featherstone, May's Lib Dem equalities minister. Apparently, it is the first time a top cabinet minister has not attended a Gay Pride march in five years. But that's fine, too, because David Cameron had lots of prominent gay people around to Downing Street to mark the start of Gay Pride fortnight. Then again, is this really fine or should the gay community be feeling just a little bit patronised with this "just do the showbiz stuff and perhaps they won't notice we're not really doing much else" coalition attitude?
Only the blackest of hearts could be actively opposed to the government love-in with the gay community. I'm sure we all prefer it to what happened the last time the Conservatives were in power: votes against lowering the age of consent, many MPs terrified to admit they were gay, and Section 28, which barred schools from acknowledging homosexuality.
So we all agree the love-in is better. However, has the coalition actually earned it? Here are some of the issues the coalition has talked about so far: men with convictions for sex with someone over the age of 16 having their criminal records expunged; transgender equality; homophobic bullying in schools; pushes to get other nations to support gay civil rights. Impressive stuff, unless it turns out to be a lot of hot air, not to mention a shameless degree of goal hanging.
Indeed, whatever the coalition sets out to achieve, the fact remains that Labour already did most of the heavy lifting. The coalition is currently benefiting from a situation where all the really controversial legislation has been pushed through.
With the Tory climate being what it was, does anyone truly believe that, had they remained in power, they would have spent the last 13 years, among other things, repealing Section 28, introducing civil partnerships, legalising gay adoption, lifting the ban on homosexuality in the armed forces or reducing the age of consent?
This is now all hypothetical. Indeed, Labour achieved so much that all the coalition has to do now is embellish existing legislation and try not to mess it up. Talk about easy street.
Maybe this is what those prominent gay sorts should have been musing on as they partook of tea and biscuits at No 10. Forward thinking and letting go of a tainted past is all very well. However, perhaps they could be just a little more appreciative of what Labour achieved, maybe, considering Tory history, a bit less in a craven rush to have their tummies tickled by Cameron.
Currently, the gay community is the Gallaghers to Cameron's Blair – a convenient tool to make him and his colleagues look "with it". Once the honeymoon is over, and the pink stetsons have disappeared, it will be interesting to see whether the coalition ends up with an LGBT record to match Labour's.
