John Nicolson
Main Page: John Nicolson (Scottish National Party - Ochil and South Perthshire)Department Debates - View all John Nicolson's debates with the Home Office
Orlando Attack: UK Security Measures
John Nicolson Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs May
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. Gun availability is an important part of the overall issue. As I said earlier, we hear many voices in the United States—sadly—on both sides of the argument, because there are those who strongly claim that the right to carry arms should enable guns of this sort to be more freely available and ever present. I should be happy to raise the issue with the American Administration, because I think it important that we can see the dangers. We have suffered a tragedy here that led to the tightening of our gun laws, and I think we are all grateful for the fact that we now have the toughest, or some of the toughest, gun laws in the world.
John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I am a gay man, and let us all say unambiguously what happened in Orlando yesterday: it was a premeditated slaughter of gay people because they were gay by a man who we are told had been outraged because he recently saw two men kissing. It was the worst mass killing of gay people in our lifetime. Does the Home Secretary agree that homophobia is not intrinsic to the human condition? It is too often taught in homes, in school classrooms and playgrounds and in places of worship. Anyone who has ever winced when they saw two men kissing, muttered loathing when they saw two women holding hands or who has invoked God in justification for a human prejudice is complicit in creating a climate of poisonous intolerance. Will the Home Secretary therefore agree that love and tolerance should serve as the epitaph for those who have died so monstrously?
Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I think we should take that message of love and tolerance, and we should be very clear that we condemn these sorts of prejudices that, as he says, can be taught and encouraged and sadly in some places are being taught and encouraged. They are not part of the society that we wish to live in, the values we share and the tolerance and respect for others that we want to see across the whole of the United Kingdom.