British Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant has delivered an inspiring speech highlighting while Pride month is still vitally important.
Bryant, who serves as the UK’s Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms and Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, delivered his remarks in Westminster on Monday.
The former Anglican priest, said Pride has always been needed, and continues to be needed to fight homophobia and oppression.
Bryant studied to be a priest and was ordained in 1987, but he left the clergy in 1991 after deciding that being gay and being a priest were not compatible.
Opening his address to parliament Bryant noted that a newspaper had once described him as an “ex-gay vicar”, he said the part about him being an ex-vicar was true, but he certainly was never “ex-gay”.
“I am a practising homosexual—one day I will be quite good at it.” he said, before delivering his views on why the Pride movement is still essential.
“People ask me, ‘Why on earth do you need a Pride Month? Do you really need LGBT History Month? What’s the point of Pride marches and Pride flags?
“Hasn’t the world changed? Haven’t you already got same-sex marriage and adoption, gays in the police and the military, and laws that protect people from discrimination on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender reassignment? What more do you want?’
“That is what I hear all the time, even from really well-meaning, liberal souls.” he said
“But we have always needed Pride. We needed it when people lazily assumed that a short haircut meant that you were a lesbian or a lisp meant that you were gay. We needed it when people laughed at Larry Grayson and John Inman but forced them to hide their sexuality.
“We needed it when people said that we should be harassed, arrested and locked up for loving who we wanted. We needed it when the police wore rubber gloves to arrest us, just in case we gave them AIDS.
“We needed it when we were called queer, faggot and arse bandit at school. We needed it when we were sneered at, spat at, punched, kicked and beaten up.” Bryant said.
He continued on, saying;
“And we need Pride now—when kids are still bullied because they are camp or butch; when families still throw their LGBT children out of the home; when many are so worn down by abuse that they take their own lives; when so many are so terrified of coming out that they live lives of terrible, crushing loneliness; when people are abused for wanting to transition; when our cousins in Hungary are denied the right to demonstrate; when the state police in many countries deliberately entrap homosexuals; when trans people are treated as less than human; and when homosexuality is still illegal in 63 countries, including 38 that apply those rules to women, and including more than half the Commonwealth.
“Yes, we still need Pride.” he declared.
Later in his speech he paid tribute to many prominent gay Britons, including those from the Rhondda in Wales, the area he represents.
“We need to need to celebrate what LGBT people have given us. That includes Alan Turing, Ivor Novello, George Michael, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, Wilfred Owen, Oscar Wilde, Edward Carpenter, Anne Lister, Maureen Colquhoun, Radclyffe Hall, Virginia Woolf, Clare Balding, Jess Glynne, Alex Scott, Jane Hill, Skin, Nicola Adams and Sandi Toksvig—and, from the Rhondda, I would add Daniel Evans, H from Steps and Callum Scott Howells, who go to prove that I am not the only gay in the village.
