STRICTLY OFFENSIVE
» Widdecombe claims scientists can find ‘answer’ to homosexuality » Show dancer leads outrage at Brexit Party MEP’s ‘bigoted’ views
ANN Widdecombe has claimed science may find an “answer” for homosexuality.
The Brexit Party MEP and former Strictly star was branded a “bigot” over the anti-gay rant.
Dancer Robin Windsor said: “No amount of rolling around in glitter has polished this politician.”
IT is sad that as we celebrate 50 years since LGBT people started a movement to secure equality, views like this are still held by people in public office.
Suggesting science should find an “answer” to same-sex attraction supports the view that being lesbian, gay, bi or trans is something that needs to be, or can be, cured, which is untrue.
We know so-called gay cures are often extremely harmful to people.
Diversity is something that should be embraced and celebrated, which is what we’ll be doing this Pride month. ANN Widdecombe was last night accused of living in the dark ages over her crass comments about “gay cures”. The newly-elected MEP and former Strictly star, who fled the Tories to join Nigel Farage’s Brexit party, faced a furious backlash after declaring “science may produce an answer” to homosexuality. Ex-Strictly dancer Robin Windsor was on the BBC show with Widdecombe, 71, in 2010 and led the chorus of outrage.
He said: “You would think working on Strictly, in pantos and in show business surrounded by the LGBT community she would have developed a less bigoted view. Sadly no amount of rolling around in glitter has polished this… politician.” TV star Stephen Fry added: “But will science ever find an answer to Ann Widdecombe?” Gay Labour MP Wes Streeting said: “Ann Widdecombe is a relic from a bygone era, whose petty prejudices are out of touch with the majority in Britain.” His colleague Stephen Doughty, co-chair of the LGBT Parliamentary Labour Party, added: “Ann Widdecombe needs to stick her sick, twisted prejudice where it belongs… back in the 19th century.” Labour’s Chris Bryant added: “However she dresses it up in sequins there’s something nasty at the heart of what she says. Every time she adds a bit of this poison to the well another gay teen will be bullied or harm him or herself.” Colleague Jess Phillips said: “Maybe science could try to come up with a cure for bigotry.” Widdecombe’s homophobic outburst came during a TV interview where she defended comments she made in 2012 about “gay conversion” therapy. And she risked angering transgender rights activists by comparing the “cures” to the fight to change gender legally. Widdecombe said: “I also pointed out there was a time when we thought it was impossible for men to become women and vice versa. And the fact we now think it’s impossible for people to switch sexuality doesn’t mean science may not yet produce an answer at some stage.
“I’ve never claimed such science exists. I’ve merely said that if you simply rule out the possibility of it, you are denying people who are confused about their sexuality, or discontented with it, the chances that you do give to people who want to change gender.”
THE Tories must not offer to sell our National Health Service to Donald Trump.
Every candidate for the Tory leadership must be made to promise that they will never allow profit-hungry US healthcare vultures to feast on our most precious public service.
As the bombastic US President flies into Britain, his financial backer and ambassador in London, Woody Johnson, let the cat out of the bag by admitting that any post-Brexit trade deal with the States will involve access to our NHS and them selling us chlorinated chicken.
To open up the NHS to American corporations would be an expensive disaster.
We’ve nothing to learn from a country where doctors check credit cards before pulses, workers losing jobs are stripped of medical aid and the poor die for want of hospital care.
Trump and his Tory and Brexit Party fans are threats to our way of life. We must expose and defeat them because Britain deserves better than the pain they inflict.