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5.52 pm
Kali Mountford (Colne Valley): I must congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) on one of the most powerful speeches that I have ever heard. It was certainly one of the most reasoned, and I found it emotional too. I do not disagree with a word that he said. In years to come, his speech will spark a chord in all our hearts and remind us of a day when reason overtook the unreasonable, and compassion took the place of prejudice.
I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ann Keen) because without them, we would not be discussing this crucial progression in our social history. I thank them wholeheartedly for their contributions.
Having heard some of my best arguments stolen in this reasoned debate, I shall revert to the position of a mother who must consider as her children grow the sort of world that she wants them to occupy, the space that she wants them to live in, the values that the world upholds and what she wants for them. The teenage years are turbulent for us all, regardless of sexuality. It is a difficult and traumatic time even for members of the majority. Members of minority groups of any sort--sexuality can constitute one--find life incredibly difficult. One need have only a few freckles or red hair, or wear spectacles--I speak from experience--to know the cruel remarks that friends at school will make. That must be multiplied a thousand times if one stands out like a sore thumb as a result of one's--I hesitate to use the word "preference" even though Stonewall do--sexuality, or of the people to whom one is most attracted.
Let us examine where attraction comes from. It is not correct to talk about choice and life style. We all make choices about our partners, but we do not choose any old partner. As a woman, looking around the Chamber, I could not say that I would be automatically attracted to every man here. Indeed, as a happily married woman, I hesitate to say that I would be attracted to anyone. In their choices of partners, women choose from a selective group of particular individuals who are attractive to them. Likewise, heterosexual males are not attracted to any old woman; I like to think that they have some discrimination in their choice of partners. The same is true of same-sex couples.
Towards the end of his speech, the hon. Member for Witney used the word "love". I think that that word needs to be introduced to this debate with some vigour. Same-sex couples, male or female, have the same deep love for each other as other couples. I do not argue that when we fall passionately in love at 16, that love will sustain us throughout our lives; I have made such errors myself, as I am sure have other hon. Members. We cannot denounce one sort of love as less valuable than any other. For the person who loves, love is an absolute feeling. To deny people that love would be criminal in itself.
In supporting children in their burgeoning sexuality--exploring as they do, often tentatively, how to develop their relationships, how to speak to people to whom they are attracted, and what experiments are safe--I would not want anyone's child not to feel free to approach a parent or guardian, or someone with whom they feel safe, to discuss how to go forward.
Laura Moffatt (Crawley):
As one mother to another, I am sure that if we were going to act on our prejudices, we would say that our love is so fierce for our children that we would not want them to have anything to do with the same or opposite sex until they were 30--but that is not a reasonable response or a reasonable love. We would not want our children to grow up like that. Does my hon. Friend agree that what comes from within sometimes has nothing to do with how our society best moves forward or with how we ensure that our children are best protected?
Kali Mountford:
I have often wished that my children would wait until they were 30 or even 45 because I want to protect them from any mistake in their choice of partner or in having children at an early age. It is reasonable for a mother to feel that, notwithstanding the fact that one does not want to accept that one has reached such an age. If we truly love our children, we want them to have the best from relationships that they can possibly have. That means that we sometimes have to accept them as sentient beings, capable of making their own decisions and choices. We must accept that their feelings are valid, even if we would wish that they were not as they are. We may fear for children when they choose same-sex partners because we know the prejudice that they will encounter in daily life. If as parents, or as a society, we denounce them and deny them the support that they need, what a difficult life we impose on them. That leads to the traumas that the hon. Member for Witney described, and the possibility of facing suicidal choices.
Can people go on denying themselves as people and conform to some social view? If ever there was a debate where the personal and the political, the public and the private, were brought together, this is it. Here we have
Parliament making statements and pronouncements on our most intimate feelings and on the most intimate ways in which we conduct ourselves in our public and private lives.
Whatever our children's sexuality, we would all want to make distinctions about how they operate in their sexual lives. We certainly do not want too many public demonstrations of sexuality, because in the normal run of a day's events, that is not appropriate behaviour. However, it is bizarre to believe that someone who has a preference for a partner of the same sex is likely to be more demonstrative in public, more promiscuous and more offensive than someone who prefers a partner of the opposite sex. I have often had occasion to view the passions of teenagers displayed in public places and I have thought such behaviour inappropriate. If it were a child of mine, I would admonish that child, saying, "That is something to be done in private, my dear." However, I have never had occasion to admonish a same-sex couple for that sort of behaviour.
The very fact that same-sex couples keep their affections secret strikes me as sad. Society already denounces their relationships to such an extent that even to hold hands in the street is difficult for same-sex couples, regardless of how much they love each other; whereas for heterosexual couples quite extraordinary behaviour in the most public of places appears to be perfectly acceptable. There is a real contradiction in the value our society attaches to different sets of couples.
The crucial word in all of that has to be love, and if we think about love, we must think about compassion. Some hon. Members have deeply held religious feelings, but I would point out that all the world's major religions about which I have read are based on compassion and love. Although interpretations of those religions vary--I accept that people hold different views on the teachings of all the world's religions, not only Christianity--I urge hon. Members to look again at their religious values and beliefs, for they are saying something sad about civilisation as a whole if they are without compassion.
Mr. Bercow:
The hon. Lady is making a thought-provoking speech. In the course of that speech, will she set out her view, as my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) set out his, on the practical effects of equalisation?
Kali Mountford:
I had hoped to come to those remarks later. Everything we do has practical effects, and the law as it stands has practical effects. One of those practical effects is prejudiced bullying, resulting in the state of mind of individuals who are denounced reaching the point where they conclude that they have to commit suicide. Sadly, suicide is not a rare event in the homosexual community. The incidence is especially high in the younger age group, whose members are not emotionally ready to deal with such prejudice being heaped on them at a tender age. For such an overwhelming social view and the weight of the law to be dumped upon a mere child is heavy indeed.
Dr. Julian Lewis:
What does it say about the state of mind of a 16 or 17-year-old child--I use the word child deliberately--that he would commit suicide rather than wait 18 months or two years until his act was perfectly
Kali Mountford:
It would be extraordinary if all individuals had to be psychologically tested before being allowed to commit any sexual act. If we were in that position--with so much hatred being heaped upon us by the people who were prejudiced against us, or being subjected to the indifference of society as a whole to our love and feelings--we might conclude, as some people do, that suicide was a rational act, because of our fears about how our life would unfold and because of society's lack of acceptance of our feelings for others. How we love another individual is such an intrinsic part of our humanity that for society to denounce it is far too great a burden to impose, not only on 16 or 17-year-olds, but on anyone at any stage of his or her life. Suicide is not an act committed only by homosexuals. My point is that such denunciation is too much of a burden to place on young people, because it can lift the threshold of despair to such a level that suicide is a more likely choice.
The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) asked about practical effects, and we have not fully investigated that subject. One practical effect of equalisation would be the opening up of society as a whole to greater acceptance of one individual by another. That effect is a valid aim in itself. By basing our society on compassion and love, and by being supportive of individuals and not threatening them, we remove one criminal act, which means that police time can be spent on matters more fruitful than investigations into the private behaviour of individuals whose actions are of concern to no one but themselves. We must stop pretending that the law as it stands offers protection to the individual. When they fall in love, people do not necessarily require our protection, whether or not they form a same-sex couple. What they need is protection that allows them to investigate their sexuality in private, which brings us to the root of the problem.
We started the debate by discussing choice and preference, but I contend that no choice is made, other than that of a particular partner. Our sexuality is an intrinsic part of ourselves--I believe that it is intrinsic at the time we are born. I know that there is debate about whether or not an individual's sexuality is fully developed by the age of 11, 13, or 16, but there is physical evidence to suggest that our sexuality is determined while we are still in the womb. There is plenty of evidence from family groups that suggests that sexuality is a genetic trait. That evidence is so strong that it is daft to pretend that, somehow and at some point, we can be lured into a type of sexuality that is against our nature. It is as ridiculous as saying that our eye colour, which is determined at birth, can be changed at the age of 16 without the aid of contact lenses. I cannot change my eye colour from blue to brown; nor can I change my sexual orientation. I cannot accept that we can be lured away from our nature.
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