In a provocative speech that offends Christian Truth, Nick Herbert, the openly-homosexual Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, said that homosexuality may be ‘given by God’ and that a Conservative Government would legislate to promote ‘gay equality’.
Mr Herbert travelled to Washington DC on 17 February 2010, to tell American Republicans that they should back homosexual ‘rights’ because support for homosexual equality is ‘an essential element of modern conservatism’.
Mr Herbert claimed there was no contradiction between David Cameron’s outspoken support for marriage and his conversion to the homosexual equality agenda.
He said that the Conservatives were sympathetic to groups, such as the Quakers, who wanted to offer homosexual couples religious wedding ceremonies but were currently barred by law from doing so.
Some homosexuals are also angry at laws which bar them from describing their civil partnership commitment ceremonies as a ‘marriage’.
Although same-sex couples can now enter civil partnerships, which carry the same legal rights as marriage, some homosexual activists complain they remain ‘second-class citizens’, the Daily Mail reported. Mr Herbert said:
‘In the UK, we created in law a civil union for heterosexual couples, specifically devoid of any religious ceremony and significance for those who do not wish to marry in church.
‘So what religious grounds could there be for opposing the extension of a secular institution to gay couples?'
‘We should not seek to prevent adoption by same-sex couples who may offer a love and stability that is absent from too many homes,’ he added.
Mr Herbert also spoke on the BBC’s Today programme saying there has been a ‘definite change’ in the Conservative Party's attitude towards homosexuals.
(See the CCFON report)
Last year, Chris Bryant, a homosexual Government minister who once posed in his underpants on a ‘gay dating’ website, said clergy should be ‘much more open’ to the idea of celebrating civil partnerships in Church.
At the end of January 2010, Lord Alli, an openly homosexual Peer, tabled an amendment during a House of Lords debate on the Equality Bill that would ‘allow civil partnerships to take place on religious premises’.
He withdrew it after Lady Thornton pointed out it would create an ‘anomalous’ situation whereby homosexual couples could have prayers said at their event whereas heterosexual ones could not. It would also require registrars to carry out religious services, and for priests to conduct ceremonies outside of their places of worship, Lady Thornton said.
The first civil partnership will soon be held in Parliament after Gordon Brown and the Speaker backed the move to allow it.