News

By Hilary White

LONDON, May 5, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Monday, just three days before the election, the U.K. Conservatives announced that under their leadership, the government would 'consider' changing the law to allow gay civil partnerships to be called marriages. Meanwhile, more British Tory supporters are warning conservative Brits not to cast their vote for David Cameron’s party in the general election tomorrow.

Shadow women's minister Theresa May made the announcement as part of the Tories’“contract for equalities,” that she said would create “a fairer deal for gay people across Britain.”

The equalities manifesto boasts, “Since the beginning of his leadership, David Cameron has made clear the Conservative Party's commitment to sexual equality and gay rights – from his first conference speech, in which he proudly confirmed our support for civil partnerships, to his apology for our former stance on Section 28 [the prohibition against promoting homosexuality in schools].

“Whether it's our strong commitment to supporting marriage and civil partnerships, or our proposals for flexible parental leave which will benefit parents regardless of their sexuality, the modern Conservative Party is committed to a fairer deal for gay people across Britain.”

The Conservatives are unique among the three main parties in promising the homosexual community that they would create legal “gay marriage.”

Peter Hitchens, the prominent centre-right political and religious commentator, wrote in Sunday’s Daily Mail that the result of a Tory win tomorrow will be “the opposite” of what is wanted by conservative voters.

Hitchens begged readers not to fall for the “shimmering, greasy, cynical fraud” of Cameron’s Conservatives.

“You may want to ‘Get Gordon Brown out’. So do I. And he’s done for anyway. But do you really want to put in a man who agrees with Gordon Brown on almost every major issue, and is so confident of his liberalism that he doesn’t even try to keep it secret?”

Hitchens quotes Cameron calling conservative-minded people “fruitcakes and closet racists.” Cameron, he said, has paid only cynical, politically motivated lip-service to issues like “the destruction of the married family and the undermining of adult authority,” abuse of alcohol and drugs, unrestricted immigration and the rising rate of violent crime.

Hitchens warned, “If you now endorse the Cameron Tory Party, you will destroy all real hope of change for the better.”

The Hitchens warning follows a searing blast last month from Gerald Warner, a long-time Conservative party insider who is now disaffected from the party. Warner told LifeSiteNews.com that the “only hope” to save either the party or Britain is for Cameron to lose the election.

Today Warner wrote in the Telegraph that Cameron has “embarked on an aggressive renunciation of Conservative values amounting to the complete evisceration of his party.”

Warner said that in his liberalizing project for the party, Cameron has become “complicit in persecution of Christians.” He warns that should a Conservative government carry out its promise of “gay marriage” and such ceremonies are forced on churches, “Christianity will be in full collision with the state.”

Philip Lardner, a Scottish Tory candidate who has been kicked out of the party for publicly declaring that he holds Christian views about homosexuality, told LSN last week that the party has been co-opted by Cameron’s cadre of progressives, but that the party does not belong to them.

“It’s my party,” Lardner said, “and my local members’ party as much as it’s David Cameron’s party. The Conservative party is one of the most important social institutions of the United Kingdom. It has contributed hugely to the success and development of the United Kingdom. One or two people shouldn’t be allowed to highjack that from the party’s roots.”

In fact, the Daily Mail points out that the party is not exactly in lock-step on the issue. Defense spokesman Julian Lewis said the equalization of the age of consent exposed gay teenagers to HIV, and shadow home secretary Chris Grayling got in trouble with the party leadership for saying that B&B owners should be free to refuse to allow homosexual couples to stay in their homes.

The Mail highlights a poll conducted by PinkNews.com that showed support for the Conservatives among homosexuals has dropped from 39 per cent last June to just 9 per cent now. The poll showed the surge being enjoyed by the Liberal Democrats among voters in general is being carried in the homosexual community as well, with the Lib Dems at 58 per cent and Labour at 21 per cent support.

The Tory efforts to woo the trendiest of all progressive causes appear to have left the homosexualist activists themselves unimpressed. Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell expressed his skepticism, saying the Tories have failed to actually commit to the “gay marriage” promise and to end the ban on homosexual blood donors.

Tatchell said the promise of changes to the marriage law made earlier by Shadow chancellor George Osborne were meaningless. 

“When pressed what this meant, he declined to give any assurances that a Conservative government would order a review of the law,” he said. “A commitment to merely consider the case for legalising gay marriage is meaningless.”