Reform UK bans promotion of LGBTQ and Pride events at Essex libraries

[IwantToRetire]

Essex libraries have been banned from promoting LGBTQ and Pride events by the county council’s new Reform UK leadership.

The diktat comes at the start of Pride Month: a four-week celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) communities.

A spokesperson for Save Our Libraries Essex said: “This is very disturbing and alarming news.

“What possible reason is there not to display Pride promotional material? It’s not as if it’s costing the library service anything, other than pure prejudice.

“It’s not just bigotry, it’s anti-business. Pride gets people out and spending money in our towns and cities. Where will this end up?”

Article continues with explanation from Reform for their decision at https://www.bishopsstortfordindependent.co.uk/news/reform-uk-bans-promotion-of-lgbtq-and-pride-events-at-essex-9468415/

People are starting to realise that Pride is no longer about LGB people being able to be open about who they are.

It’s now about people flaunting and performing their fetishes in public.

Good riddance to it.

Nope, too late. This old argument won't convince anyone anymore. You've overplayed your hand, and we see you. You'll have to try something else , and we will be ready, whatever it is.

Me too. I just want Pride being back to “we’re here and happy to be us,” and I’ll happily accept any number of classic rainbow flags across businesses, public offices, etc. Banning them is going way too far.

The problem is something has gone badly wrong when adult male furries with butt plug tails are encouraging children to come into the ball pit they're crouching in. And Susie Green sets up a Mermaids stall, complete with sweets and a cute dog urging children to 'come and see us for sweets and cuddles at Pride'.

People aren't blind.

Men everywhere suddenly think it's perfectly fine to practice their kink, fetish, whatever, in public. Drag Queen Story Time? - men writhing on the floor in libraries with little kids crawling over them, Rainbow dildo butt monkey, or whatever that twits nickname is. Prancing around with a foot long dildo hanging out of his costume.

The entire concept of Pride needs a reboot. And they need to leave the T out of it. It's become a magnet for very undesirable men indeed.

So the issue is conflating PrideTM with homosexuality.
PrideTM has lost credibility and has become extremely political, banning groups from attending etc.

Effectively it’s become a disreputable organisation, being massively in debt in some areas, have massive safeguarding fails in others- including ignoring concerns there were pedophiles at the helm.

So the ‘ban’ needs to be about reputational protection, maybe.

Otherwise, what would they be able to promote, educationally speaking, that doesn’t fall under the same political banner?

Perhaps they could promote equality, doing displays on each of the criteria?
Maybe they could promote events happening locally.
Charities that aren’t disreputable? What about Amnesty? That Christian group that support some gender critical actions, but also deeply disturbing life support court cases.

I'm talking about public attitude.

Right but I was asking you how you think that balanced with us not having marriage equality until years later? Do you really think public attitude towards gay people was better in a time where our relationships weren't considered equal to hetero relationships and where we couldn't have the same legal rights and protections that married people have? You seem to have gone on a rant completely away from this point.

That gay marriage wasn't legal in the 90s/200s doesn't alter the fact that a lot of people - the majority I'd say - were quite pro-gay marriage. I don't remember widespread attitudes of "You can be gay if you want, but you don't get to be equal"; by the beginning of this century I'd say gay people were treated as equals by and large. It was the government and the legislature that was behind the times, and they were seen to be so.

Everything thing in this post is counterfactual, misinformation, hysterical imagines and outright lies.

There's no reason why the council can't ban the promotion of a political ideology, it's deeply misogynist and highly homophobic and should be banned from public funded utilities. When Reform decide to instruct the library to promote Reform, then I'll start to think they're being authoritarian.

Is this based on stats, personal experience, online reporting?

Because the everyday trans women and men I know and have met are nothing like what gets shouted about online. They're not exaggerated stereotypes, they're not obsessed with their trans-ness, they're just regular people.

I work in a library. The only display we are told we must do e is Pride. No other. Just pride. Lucky my area is the children's area so I ignore it for that area of the library.

Exactly. It's part of the staff networks over reaching and management pushing an ideological agenda. When they start acknowledging detransitioners I'll review my assessment.
Pride is just a money making racket now, a capitalist enterprise.

Good, and for a lot of people who say "Reform are showing their colours", this is the stuff people voted for and knowingly voted for.

We've already had LGBT History Month and now there is Pride Month. It's empty virtue signalling.

Essex libraries have promoted LGBT month, but have refused to promote D-Day or other national days and events instead for certain things that benefit less than 8% of the local population.

Interesting that LGBT rights have gone backwards since Pride became bigger.

I don't agree that the majority were probably gay marriage tbh. Even once we had CPs it was a long journey to marriage equality. I can remember many people telling me back then they had no issue with gay people but didn't believe we should be allowed to marry. I think it's a massive reach to say well you didn't have equal rights in the eyes of the law but the so what. You're really reaching to suggest that nearly half of people surveyed not supporting same sex marriage was some wonderful time when all society were ahead of the government:

1983 approximately 50% to 70% of respondents of the three major political parties (Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat) regarded homosexuality as "always wrong" or "mostly wrong" and in 1993 opposition to homosexuality was reported to have slightly increased amongst all parties. However, by 2003 attitudes had become more tolerant, with 25% to 50% of respondents regarding homosexuality as always or mostly wrong and by 2013, only around 20% to 35% of respondents in each party felt the same way. Liberal Democrat respondents tended to be less likely to regard homosexuality as wrong than Labour or Conservative respondents across each survey.
A 2004 poll by Gallup reported that 52% of respondents agreed that "marriages between homosexuals" should be recognised, while 45% said they should not.

Banning things just provokes a backlash and so is counter-productive; best just to step down the promotion of the LGBTQ+ agenda and let it find its natural place....which is not dominating and in everyone's face 24/7.

I agree that it's important to properly frame the debate. There certainly were people in the 90s/00s with prejudice, just as there are now, but it wasn't widespread. The Civil Partnership Act 2004 made same sex partnerships roughly on par with civil marriages. So between the 2004 act and the 2014 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act the question was whether those partnerships could be called 'marriage'. In my view they should be able to be so called, but very considerable rights and parity had been won long before that.

Homophobia needs to be addressed, yes, but is Pride doing that? Or is it positioning sexual orientation as a corporate festive event, rather than just another unremarkable part of life? Do drag queens and men in rubber suits really foster acceptance of same-sex attraction? (Its very obvious which sex predominates at Pride - its men in lurid costumes.)

Who decided drag carnivals for hen parties were the best way to counter homophobia, and on what basis?

There is an argument that Pride is actually starting to damage good relations that prevail in most of society, between same-sex attracted people and herero people, and now risks creating antipathy, instead.

There's also arguments that same sex attracted people may just want to celebrate LGB culture, and that makes.more sense to me, but thats not how its presented.

Its become a pious homily on prejudice and preachy chanting of catechism as stipulated by DEI departments.

Not to mention the month and days just dedicated to trans awareness, visibility and remembrance.

Section 28 was abolished in 2003. CPs may have had similar legal protections but we're definitively not the same as marriage hence many of complaining for another decade to change it. Just because you were progressive and not homophobic in the 90s/2000s it's a complete misrepresentation of facts to pretend society was in a different place than it was.

I think it's a massive reach to say well you didn't have equal rights in the eyes of the law but the so what

That is not what I said at all. My point was that society was generally pro-equal marriage (it certainly was with the people around me and the stats you've stated show it as over 50%) but that the laws had not yet been made which reflected that. I - and a lot of other people - assumed that CPs were a stepping stone to equal marriage rights, they just needed time to win round the Church (particularly given that Bishops have voting rights in the House of Lords who also have to approve laws as well as the House of Commons).

Julie Bindel on Pride and her experience.

https://juliebindel.substack.com/p/a-pride-of-perverts-e37
In Plymouth, the Pride website announces their events have been cancelled: 'The lack of national and local funding, alongside a decline in volunteer support, has made it impossible to deliver.'

Lincoln, Southampton and Hereford are all facing similar problems. Businesses that were once eager to be associated with the parades are now just as keen to disassociate themselves.

Perhaps most significantly, in Whitehall civil servants have been instructed not to waste public money on rainbow lanyards.

There was some debate within the gay community itself about whether marriage was even wanted by everyone - some saw it as fundamentally a heteronormative institution and rejected it. You certainly didn't need to be homophobic to not like the idea (although obviously many people were).

CPs may have had similar legal protections but we're definitively not the same as marriage

What substantive issues were different? Most of the differences were related to the fact that it was a modern civil procedure, but in practice it conveyed the same benefits and responsibilities as marriage. As i said, in my view full marriage was justified, but not for practically reasons, for which it was unnecessary, but for symbolic; I still stand by the statement: "very considerable rights and parity had been won long before that."

I have to admit to being a bit of peeved at the common assertion by a certain omnicause set that the 90s were a dark age of gay oppression; that's a misconception that's crept into the gay rights narrative recently that ignores very considerable, decades long progress, section 28 not withstanding. Adding to my pique is that it was late 00s and early 2010s when the gay rights movement started going off the rails - namely the ascendency of a distasteful style of LGBTQIA+, Stonewall activism. If your point is that that change in activism should be celebrated, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree.

Thank you. Good to see Julie detailing the experiences of so many older lesbians. It's very sad to see where Pride has ended up after such powerful and honourable roots.

Who tells you this? The council? Library bosses? On what grounds do they enforce promotion of Pride and nothing else?