LETTERS
Pink and blue
Sir: Despite Anne McElvoy's best efforts to tempt the Tories to chase the gay vote ('The vote that dare not speak its name', 29 June), the Conservative Party would be best advised to return its attention to one of its natural constituencies, as represented by the communities of 'family and faith'. Anne McElvoy seems to assume that the Tories could chase the pink vote without any back- lash from their traditional backers. Conser- vatives would do better if they developed the family-friendly policies that are urgently required to restore the country's fraying social fabric. Conservatives could then turn to expose the unbiblical and libertine plat- form of Labour. Churchgoers, who out- number even the highest estimate of the gay voting population, and who are current- ly considering supporting Mr Blair's highly- publicised 'Christian approach', could then return to their natural home.
Here is the evidence. The defeated February 1994 vote on lowering the homo- sexual age of consent to 16 was overwhelm- ingly backed by Labour MN; the 215 sup- porters from the Labour benches account- ed for 77 per cent of this total vote of 280. Mark Henderson of the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights has promised: 'At worst, we will get more than we have ever had from any other government. We've just got to put the pressure on to make sure we get as much as possible.' Much of the pressure will come from within the Labour Party, which by a 97.6 per cent majority backed an equal age of consent at its annual conference. The danger issues in a Labour parliament would be the reduc- tion of the homosexual age of consent to 16; the lifting of the ban on gays in the mili- tary; codification of homosexual fostering and adoption rights; and moves toward affirming homosexual partnerships and marriages. If Labour keep their promises not to tax and spend and tax and spend again, and so resist the pressure groups that desperately await Mr Blair's election, the socialist backbenchers, so unnaturally quiet at the moment, will quickly become disap- pointed. One inexpensive way of appeasing them will be to introduce the kind of legis- lation identified above.
The Liberal Democrats are no better. That party's MPs voted unanimously for the age of consent to be reduced to 16. Recent Liberal Democrat conference votes on the legalisation of soft drugs, contracep- tive rights for under-16s and changes to the monarchy illustrate the radical nature of this wrongly perceived 'middle-of-the-road' party. Through its DELGA initiative, Paddy Ashdown's party proposes the most comprehensive suite of gay rights legisla- tion of all the parties.
Even the ultra-liberal President Clinton has begun to recognise the folly of indulging the homosexual community and has signed a 'Defence of Marriage Act' which recognises marriage as serving only heterosexuals.
Tim Montgomerie
Conservative Christian Fellowship, 12b Widecombe Court, Lyttelton Road, London N2
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