Hate Crime Against the LGBT+ Community
Debate between Judith Cummins and Chris Loder(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and congratulate him on securing this important debate. I will speak briefly from my own experiences and perspectives as someone who, before my election to this place, was physically assaulted for being who I am. It is incredibly important that we tackle the root causes that motivate and cause such behaviours against members of the LGBT community, which is why I am so pleased to support the hon. Gentleman’s debate.
As we tackle this hideous behaviour, though, it is also important that we lead by example and hold our own community to account, just as we would the wider public, because in the quest to reduce instances of hate crime against the LGBT community, we also have to look at our own behaviours within it. It is simply unacceptable for those who may well have been impacted by hate issues previously to provoke and manufacture homophobic hate against staff or innocent supporters of an MP for political purposes, especially when they are fuelled by alcohol. I am afraid that this is a growing issue and one that I have personally faced as recently as this week, in my home town of Sherborne. I put on the record my thanks to Dorset police for responding so promptly and for their help in calming an extraordinarily aggressive situation.
At Manchester Pride last year, the current shadow Leader of the House of Commons—the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who is a Labour Member—turned up with her supporters in T-shirts bearing the words “Never kissed a Tory”. I am sorry to say so, but she should be ashamed for doing that and for making some people—
Chris Loder
Yes, I have. As I was saying, I believe that the hon. Member for Manchester Central should be ashamed for doing that, and for making some people who do not share her political views uncomfortable for joining a Pride event—an event at which we should be united and not divided. I believe that it is as much our duty to call out such instances of hypocrisy within the community when we see them as it is to call out those outside the community who serve hate against us. I will not be threatened nor intimidated by that sort of nastiness. That kind of behaviour does not just stem from drunken louts, but can start and be fomented by supposedly upstanding members of the community.
When such comments originate from those who hold elected office, I hope they are taken into account at election time. Where the proprietors of local businesses spread that form of hate, I hope their customers fully know the values of that business and consider to whom they give their custom in future. Manufactured hate against gay people by gay people for the purposes of political difference is still hate. It has no place in our society, nor in our community, and where it happens and has happened, I shall shine an intense light on it—as I hope everybody will.