| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
10 Mar 2003 : Column 77—continued
Mrs. Brooke: Is the hon. Gentleman worried by the fact that many teachers dislike section 28 because they have felt inhibited about giving essential guidance to troubled adolescents?
Mr. Leigh: Nothing in section 28 prevents a balanced discussion in the classroom of sexuality, homosexuality or anything else.
Let me deal with the Conservative party because it is important to understand our position. Conservative Front-Bench Members fear that, if they support section 28 they will be perceived as acting against a minority, and that that will lose us support in the country. I do not believe that. The only people who raise gay rights issues at election time are gay rights activists. On the doorstep, voters are worried about crime, education and health.
Homosexual people vote Conservative because they believe in Conservative values and not because the party plays up to a minority rights agenda. We cannot appease every interest group. Tory Members could vote en masse for repeal today but I doubt whether it would sway more than a few hundred voters in the country. In my experience, those who are most stridently critical of traditional Tory party policy on section 28 would not vote Conservative anyway.
Some people hold conventional views and like section 28, but believe that it should go because it is a totem to others. Such arguments have been made today. They perceive that a small minority has strong personal feelings about the provision. That is undeniable, but it is not a good enough reason to change a law. Some people feel strongly that recreational use of cannabis should be legal, but that is not enough for Parliament.
I stress, especially to my hon. Friends, that we must make a moral judgment. I hear the sound of hackles rising, but we make moral judgments all the time in the House. We decide that it is moral to tax people and threaten them with criminal proceedings unless they pay. We force people to pay income tax because we believe that it is moral to do that to fund public services. We disagree about the extent of taxation but we cannot deny that we make a moral judgment. We do so all the time.
We make moral judgments about criminalising people. We will shortly consider the Sexual Offences Bill, which will criminalise some forms of incest for the first time. It will provide that a person who has any sexual contact with someone who is under 16 commits a criminal offence. Most hon. Members support that. However, it is a moral judgment.
In the past, some hon. Members laughed when I said that I have friends who are homosexual. I mention that to rebut the calumny, which is often thrown at people with views such as mine, that we are hateful, spiteful, prejudiced or bigoted and that we openly or secretly wish homosexual people to suffer. We are accused of condoning physical violence against homosexual people or stirring up such violence, and of being equivalent to racists. We are nothing of the sort. We are simply making a judgment that is based on our religion or our moral beliefs about the family. It is based on profound conviction. We make a judgment about people's actions, not their inherent, inborn traits, the colour of their skin or their genes. I accept that we make a moral judgment, but I believe that we are entitled to make it.
Those who are open and honest about their moral judgments do not hate the people who engage in the act of which they disapprove. That would be thoroughly unchristian. However, they believe that the act is wrong. Sometimes in this House, we have to have the moral courage to stand up for what we believe in. When we are talking about protecting children and young people, we must stand up for what we believe to be right.
7 pm
Section 28 is a statement that there is no moral equivalence between homosexuality and heterosexuality. I make that moral statement. I know that it is controversial and that it is not accepted by many people in this House, but I make it in the knowledge that many other people in this country believe it to be true. It is the view of very many parents who are interested not in the gay rights agenda, but in bringing up their children, just as I want to do, to be moral, responsible, self-controlled and right-thinking members of society. They care about preserving the values that are important to them. Why should they be called names just for doing the right thing for their children?
I commend amendment No. 8 to the House.
Mr. Shaun Woodward (St. Helens, South): The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) spoke about getting the debate back to reality. I say this to the hon. Gentleman, who is not in his place: it may be that his intentions were honourable and related to saving taxpayers' money, but the unintended consequences of the legislation have been appalling. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) set out the reality of the position from one perspective. As a trustee of Childline, I have to tell the House that I have heard the reality from kids speaking at the end of a phone line about the lack of protection that they have received because of the uncertainty in their schools.
The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) spoke about the importance of protecting children from bullying. He is absolutely right to talk about that, but section 28 was a charter to allow some bullying to take place on the ground of homophobia. However much Opposition Front Benchers shake their heads about that, I simply say to them that they should come and listen to the children whom we talk to at Childline and hear about the pain that they suffer. He may stick to his principles and believe that the measure could not possibly have that effect, but the reality is that it did.
This issue is not about wasting taxpayers' money. Indeed, Childline has to raise money and is one of a number of charities that have to do so to fund work to
clear up the damage done by pernicious measures such as section 28. The reality is that section 28 passed judgment. That was most brilliantly—if one can use those words to mean "in a shining sense"—shown in the words "pretended family relationship". That phrase caused huge hurt and, indeed, it was intended by some to do so. That was at the heart of section 28 and it has damaged people. One of the finer things that we will be doing this year in our legislation is ridding the statute book of this nasty and pernicious measure.The word "promotion" was a very clever one to use. That may not have been the intention, but it was unintentionally very clever. Why? Those of us who thought that section 28 was a bad measure had to say, if we supported its repeal, that we wanted homosexuality to be promoted. If we wanted it to be repealed, it apparently followed that we wanted homosexuality to be promoted. That is why the provision was so clever and why some of the press that I enjoyed three years ago was so unpleasant about me, as, apparently, I wanted to promote homosexuality.
I do not want the promotion of homosexuality or heterosexuality. What I want is responsible teaching in our schools to help children to cope with growing up. I say to the hon. Member for Cotswold that it does not help to take pieces of guidance for teachers in Scotland, deliberately to twist the way in which they were intended to be used and say that such material would be absolutely terrifying if it fell into the hands of schoolchildren. He knows that it was not intended to fall into the hands of schoolchildren and there is no question about that. Of course, such an approach can pervert the way in which we talk about the issue. Once again, it is tragic to see, when so many Conservative Members have now changed their minds—
Andrew Selous: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Many Conservative Members have changed their minds for all the best of reasons, but, unfortunately, underneath it all, among some members of the Conservative party, there is still a willingness to say, "Somewhere underneath all this, teachers really want to promote this stuff and it's all very nasty."
The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) constantly spoke about being a parent, so I shall do so in return. I have a son and three daughters. One of them may grow up to be gay or they all might not be gay. What I know is that, because of their ages, they are all passing through periods of growing up and are becoming adults and going through sexual experiences in changing from a child to an adult. I am glad if teachers are encouraged to gain understanding. The hon. Member for Cotswold referred to the word "clitoris". I have an 11-year-old daughter, a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old daughter. I am not ashamed that that word is contained in guidance to teachers. If my 11-year-old child, who is experiencing the passage of growing up, can talk with her teachers about such things and not feel ashamed and scared about it, that is a good thing and the hon. Gentleman should not be afraid of it.
I say to the hon. Member for Cotswold and his party that they lecture the Labour party on not trusting teachers and tell us that we give them too much red tape and guidance, but at the first opportunity for a free vote, they immediately want to invent guidance, regulations and red tape to tell teachers what to do in the classroom. I am prepared to trust teachers on his issue. When I was in the Conservative party, I was told that this issue was all about family values. I have always felt that it is about family values, because I do not think that family values are simply the ones that some in his party would wish to say that families were about. Families are complex things. They come in all shapes and sizes. The important thing is the love, attention and nurturing that we give to our children.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |