Petition against Theresa May holding the post of equalities minister

[Jaybird37]

Dear Mnetters

Theresa May holds the post of Minister for Women and Equality in addition to being the Home Secretary.

There are two reasons why object to this.

Firstly, as Home Secretary she will not be able to devote enough time to this role.

Secondly, I do not think she is the right person to be an advocate for equality within the Government, given her voting record on homosexual issues:

She voted against the lowering the age consent for homosexuals to 16;
against gay adoption rights; and
against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which would give lesbians the right to fertility treatment.

If you agree the petition is here

www.gopetition.co.uk/online/36217.html

Most people oppose same sex adoptions!? What utter tosh.

Unless, as I suspect, you live in a middle class middle England bubble and read the Daily Hate?

Oh and someone who is now equalities minister being absent for key legislative votes on equality isn't good enough.

On theyworkforyou.com she is assessed as being "moderately against" gay rights. Her Stonewall rating is not good. She voted for further restrictions on abortion. No problem with giving her a job in the cabinet but it's laughable to give her minister for equality & women. I would rather a man with a better voting record!

Leningrad. If your own children had to go into care, would you seriously want them to be adopted by two men rather than a couple of opposite sex? Childrens' needs should always come first and not the longing for children by same sex couples. Children who have been in care are very vulnerable, if at all possible these children need the best start, and that cannnot be provided by two men or two women. Why should adopted children be treated any differently than those that have natural parents?

Theresa May is my local MP, wins here by a pretty big margin. (Though i didnt vote for her this time)

She is a pretty good MP wrt local issues, i was concerned that she wouldnt have time for her constituency now she is in the cabinet.

ah, middle class middle England, what a lazy insult.

The reality is of course that support for homosexual [insert cause here] is higher among ABC1s than C2DEs, as per The Guardian article I already linked to.

The Scottish government did a study on this, [http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/08/02131208] and despite couching the question in the most favourable terms:

"Think about two (men/women), both in their early thirties, who have been living together for 5 years as a couple. Should it be possible for them to adopt a child in exactly the same way as a married couple?"

Only 29% said that they should in respect of gay male couples, and 46% in respect of gay female couples.

These figures are of course lower than for the UK as a whole.

Neither middle class nor middle England in fact.

But please don't let the facts stand in your way.....

It might be a lazy insult, sorry, should I be arsed and making a real effort to insult? It wasn't even aimed at you.

I don't really care what the survey says, we shouldn't have an equalities minister who has voted against gay rights. Regardless of whether they are male/female/lib dem/labour/conservative.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? It would be like making someone who failed maths GCSE chancellor of the exchequer.

but it's not true! Middle class middle England is more supportive of gay rights than working class Scotland.

It makes what you say look ridiculous, it's lazy to blame everything on the middle class.

It's not remotely similar to making a maths dunce Chancellor. 'Equality' is a nebulous concept. We are not all equal. 17-year olds cannot vote. French people cannot stand for Parliament.

Not all 'gay rights' are equal either. You can't just say 'Theresa May is against gay rights' because that's a meaningless statement, because one person's definition of 'gay rights' differs from anothers.

Rather than lazy labels let's actually consider what she has to do.

Clearly, despite the claim of morons on Facebook, she is not 'homophobic'.

As for gay adoption, that's now law anyway, and it's not going to be overturned, not a chance, whether or not it's a good thing.

Per the Guardian leader, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/12/theresa-may-nobodys-stooge 'on women she is well-briefed and creative in areas like domestic violence' and 'nobody's stooge'. These are I think positive things.

I will confess to not being an expert on gay rights issues, so I don't know if there are current legislative issues in that area, but let us not write her off as 'homophobic' when plainly she is not.

Leningrad. You have explained it all.........

She was Shadow Minister for Women so it's hardly surprising that she got the job.

'Our agenda for women' www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/08/conervative-policy-women

I was quoting a website, which has assessed her as moderately against gay rights, the websites turn of phrase - not mine. They also then provided a link to every vote on the topic and an explanation of how they calculate and weight it.

I didn't argue that it was a lazy insult. Your point, that working class Scotland is against same sex adoptions more than the middles classes in England proves nothing. Was there actually a comparative study of some English counties?

Nobody on this thread has called her homophobic apart from someone mentioning the title of a Facebook group against her.

Well done for all your linking though it doesn't come across as at all patronising. Are you Mr Theresa May? It's the only reason I can think of to explain your utterly bizarre response here.

I hope that she fully embraces the role and puts equality at the top of her agenda, because it is important and we're nowhere near. The cabinet (and shadow cab) being excellent examples of how far away we are from equality amongst men and women let alone in terms of sexuality/disability etc.

Does anyone really believe that a petition will do any good?

I do not know enough about Theresa May, and will read up a bit before commenting about her voting record, but I must admit to being bemused at a petition.

Write to her, ask her about her voting record, about her thoughts on equality for gays in UK.

And, for the record, if my DC were to be taken into care I would not care a jot about the sexuality of prospective adoptive parents, as long as they were decent people who would love, care and protect my DC.

Ewe. What part of Someguys response was 'utterly bizarre'?

There is a wider subtext to this thread which annoys me deeply. It is that only Labour could possibly represent minority groups and care about equality.

Its the big lie that is repated again and again as if there is some natural law that Conservatives hate all minorities and care nothing for equality generally.

There are gay people and people in ethnic minorities as well as women who support the Conservative party.

The defensive nature, taking umbrage with things that hadn't actually been said, linking to unrelated articles, swearing... just seemed to be taking it very personally when it could have been a good opportunity for having a bi partisan discussion about it.

I don't think there is a wider subtext to this thread at all, the issue here isn't her being a Conservative, it's about her personal voting record. I am good friends with a gay Conservative who was a PPC at last election, Conservative simply doesn't = homophobic. In fact, nobody is even saying May is homophobic just questioning whether or not this is the right position for her based on her previous actions.

Sorry have only skimmed thread but I think this petition is fairly ludicrous tbh given she hasn't been in the job more than 2 minutes. Her voting record is not hugely encouraging but there is more than one set of actions that can result from a belief in equality. It's quite a good match for Home Sec, this portfolio.

You know, my more general worry is that this position is political cyanide, at the moment, for a woman. Still. I do wonder if it's one source of the hostility towards HH. In some ways, I would have liked to see a man take it over.

I used to think that was a reactionary stance, but having heard, in RL, some of the things said about HH, I wonder now.

So I'm interested to see what happens with TM. Though I'm not expecting her to be anything other than a goalie as regards equal rights. Am really not expecting any progress at all.