Thursday, April 02, 2009

UK Gays Now More Likely to Vote Tory Than Labour (Or LibDem)?

Iain Dale's Diary: Gayers Now More Likely to Vote Tory Than Labour (Or LibDem)

Iain Dale notes that

Gaydar, has published a poll showing that gay people in Britain are, for the first time ever, more likely to vote Tory than for the two other main parties. Here are the results of the poll.

This will cause much gnashing of teeth in the predominantly left wing gay press, but will not come as a surprise to the rest of us, who have always thought gay people as a group ought to find Conservative ideas about liberty and individualism more attractive than the alternatives.


The survey is based on "1,800 gay users of the Gaydar". I don't think that is very reliable as a guide.

Whatever else one thinks of the Labour government, surely all can agree that it massively advanced the social and legal equality of LGBT people. One of David Cameron's signature moves has been to accept this social shift, but it is impossible to think that it would have happened without Labour.

This kind of advancement also only took place elsewhere under Liberal (Canada) or Socialist (most of Europe) parties. Even Sweden's decision yesterday to allow gay marriage faced opposition *only* from the Christian Democrats. I know European Parties don't always map onto British ones, but why don't conservatives ever actively advance gay equality.

If, however, Cameron's Tories call for giving Civil Partnerships the name of civil marriage, and also allow those religious groups that want it to celebrate gay unions in church, I will eat my words.

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