Mission accomplished - now let's look to the rest of the world

By Kevin Peel / @kevpeel

Ok, so it’s not exactly true. We haven’t completely accomplished the mission here at home (excuse the Bush-ism by the way) yet. As friends and colleagues of mine in other articles have said (far more eloquently I might add), we’ve still got a lot of work to do on trans rights, we need to equalise the rights of ‘married’ heterosexual and homosexual couples (though my personal opinion is that we need to be less focused on what it is called and more focused on getting the protections) and we need an urgent strategy from the Government to tackle homophobic bullying, which seems to be endemic in our schools.

However, for the most part, the decades of struggle by committed LGBT activists has paid off. We’ve got an equal age of consent, gay couples can adopt children, homophobic discrimination at work and in the provision of goods and services has been outlawed, the gender recognition act means trans people can have their true gender recognised under law, civil partnerships give lesbian and gay couples (almost) equal rights as heterosexual married couples, lesbian couples have equal access to NHS fertility treatment and we’re currently putting a shiny new Equality Bill through Parliament to tie it all together with a big bow on top.

We now need to be looking to other countries and saying ‘Why haven’t you got that?’

67 countries (don’t quote me on that) have now signed the UN’s Declaration on the Decriminalisation of Homosexuality, a groundbreaking (but nonbinding) measure put forward in December 2008 which condemned human rights violations based on homophobia. I was proud that the UK led the charge on this. It was the first time gay rights have ever been discussed in the 192 member General Assembly of the UN and marks an important point in the recognition of the world wide struggle for LGBT equality. However, it had to be proposed as a nonbinding measure because there was not enough support for an official resolution. Homosexuality is still banned in nearly 80 countries and punishable by death in 6. Including Saudi Arabia, a country I’m ashamed that we call an ally.

Closer to home, in the last 2 weeks the Lithuanian Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favour of introducing a law to ban the discussion of homosexuality in schools and to ban any mention of it in any public material that could be seen by children. LGBT people in countries like Bulgaria and Russia are frequently subject to homophobic attacks and discrimination and Pride parades in countries across Eastern Europe are often banned, LGBT communities oppressed and rights prohibited.

The EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency published a report in March which said that discrimination, harassment and violence against LGBT people is ‘widespread’ across the EU. This flies in the face of EU human rights law and the Charter on Fundamental Rights.

Our own MEP Michael Cashman and the LGBT Intergroup he presides over in the European Parliament is doing fantastic work to highlight instances of inequality and prejudice wherever they occur, but the European Parliament doesn’t have the teeth to take necessary action to prevent it. We need to be putting forward proposals to give more power to our democratically elected European Parliament so that it can act to prevent such flagrant abuse of the values and principles of the European Union.

But we can’t just pass the buck to the UN or to Europe. Our own Government needs to be speaking out more against countries oppressing their citizens and stifling basic freedoms. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office is doing some great work through the diplomatic service and I was proud to see our embassies flying the pride flag on 17th May (International Day Against Homophobia), but we need to start getting tough with countries who think it is ok to treat LGBT people as second class citizens. The softly softly approach only works if you can back it up with a big stick.

The UK is a shining example of a progressive society moving the equality agenda forward and tackling discrimination. We’ve taken the lead on advancing LGBT rights beyond anything anyone thought was possible 20 years ago. We need to challenge those countries in Europe and across the rest of the world to do the same.