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Church should accept equal
rights for gays, says David Cameron
 06
Feb 2010- London, England- David Cameron has criticised the Church of
England over its attitudes to homosexuality, calling for it to accept equal
rights for gays.
In an
interview with the gay magazine Attitude, Mr Cameron said that “our Lord
Jesus” would back equality and gay rights if he were alive. He said that he did
not want to get into a row with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams,
but the Church should recognise that equal rights for gays was “essential”.
Mr Cameron
apologised last summer on behalf of his party for the Section 28 legislation
banning promotion of homosexuality in schools.
The Tory
leader said that it was “worth looking” at changing civil partnerships to
marriage but at the moment he favoured staying in the current situation. where
we are.
He said that
gays should be able to adopt, and he believed that he could convince even a
Roman Catholic Archbishop in Scotland that “there are occasions when gay
adoption is a perfectly sensible and straightforward thing”.
He said he
believed that children did best when there were two parents to help to bring
them up and that “the ideal adoption is finding a mum and dad, but there will be
occasions when gay couples make very good adoptive parents. So I support gay
adoption.”
Mr Cameron,
who worships at a liberal High Anglican church in Kensington, was asked: “Do you
think the right of gay children to have a safe education trumps the right of
faith schools to teach that homosexuality is a sin?”He said: answered:
“Basically yes — that’s the short answer to that, without getting into a long
religious exegesis. I mean, I think, yes. I think . . . (long pause) . . . I
don’t want to get into an enormous row with the Archbishop here. But I think the
CChurch has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been
through — sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom
line full essential.”
He agreed that
faith-based organisations and charities should be encouraged to become a
multifaith group, but should not be allowed to discriminate in services they
provide.
“We shouldn’t
force you to become a multi-faith group. You can be a single-faith group. But
you must not discriminate in the provision of your services. It seems to me that
is the key distinction that you have to make.”
Mr Cameron was
asked if the Tory party still had a problem with homophobia. “Honestly,
conservative parties do always include some people of very strong religious
faith, and that is true in the Conservative Party. I think it’s also true in
some parts of the Labour Party too, actually. It’s always been the case, but I
think the idea now is there is a shared consensus bedrock view that this is a
party for equal rights whether you are male, female, black, white, urban, rural,
straight or gay.
“Actually I
could find you quite a lot of relatively religious conservatives who totally
agree that we must never go back. My Parliamentary Private Secretary Des Swayne
is a good example, someone of deep religious faith, but who argues very
passionately with people like him that they have just got it wrong. That if our
Lord Jesus was around today he would very much be backing a strong agenda on
equality and equal rights, and not judging people on their sexuality. I’m being
as honest as can, that all conservative parties will often find this journey a
bit harder than others.”
He said that
the party had been through a change and that whatever happened at the election,
there would be “quite an influx” of gay Tories such as Margot James. “The tide
has fully tuned and nobody wants to go back to Section 28 and the rest of it.”
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