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politics
Party Time
A British Parliamentary candidate-turned-
Portland resident compares LGBTQ politics
across the pond
BY ALEX BRYCE
E d . n o t e : Alex Bryce is
a British writer, com
mentator am i equality
campaigner. He worked
as a political researcher;
speechwriter, adviser and
election campaigner fo r
the Labour Party in the
Houses o f Parliament and at age 23 was selected to
he a Labour Party Parliamentary candidate. He
m oved to Portland w ith his partner in September.
To an outside observer, it is hard to fight the
urge to constantly draw comparisons between
our two vastly different political systems, par
ticularly given the many cultural similarities
and reference points we share—and particu
larly when it comes to social issues and LG-
BTQ_ equality. British politics seem dull by
comparison to their equivalent here, where
both parties seem to genuinely stand for
something that their opponents despise.
A few weeks ago, 1 was hit with a stark re
minder of how differently homosexuality is
viewed by the Republican Party and its British
counterpart, the Conservatives. David Cam
eron, the U.K. prime minister and Conserva
tive leader, made two significant appearances
on the main European LGBTQ,news site I
visit regularly: the first for mercilessly sacking
and publicly slamming a lowly local represen
tative for making homophobic comments, and
the second for pledging to introduce full gay
marriage to replace civil partnerships.
On the very same day, I heard Republican
presidential hopeful Herman Cain making
remarks that would have resulted in a humili
ating public sacking had he been a Conserva
tive member of Parliament or local elected
representative in the United Kingdom. In fact,
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after a brief look at some of the comments on
homosexuality made by Cains rivals in the
race for the Republican nomination, I’m fairly
certain they would have all—maybe with the
exception of Jon Huntsman—been sacked at
some stage by Cameron.
However, the homoerotic love (okay, I ex
aggerate) the Conservative Party leadership
now has for the LGBTQ, community is a
relatively new phenomenon—they are still
responsible for every piece of anti-gay legis
lation ever introduced in the U.K.This led me
to ponder what caused them to change and if
this is in any way applicable to politics here
in the United States.
Cynics would argue that the change was
driven more by a desire to be seen as electable
than by sincerely held beliefs. There is cer
tainly some truth in this. In Britain, unlike
over here, where the legislature and the ex
ecutive branch are separate, all the elections
of any real national significance take place at
the same time on General Election Day,
when members of Parliament are voted in.
The outcome of this determines which party
forms the government and, in turn, who be
comes prime minister. David Cameron
moved his party into the ideological middle
ground by shedding its image of being out of
touch, socially illiberal and old-fashioned.
Part of this transformation was embracing
LGBTQ_rights and equality.
When gazing across the pond from Brit
ain, it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing the
U.S. as one homogenous country with fairly
consistent values and beliefs throughout,
much like the U.K. I call this “Small Island
Syndrome.” The United Kingdom is actually
smaller in size than Oregon—that’s right, the
whole country is smaller than this state. Most
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