It's been less than a month since she coupled up with the homophobic DUP
The run up to London Pride this year has been a bit of a bumpy ride. There were some ill-thought out Pride posters dotted around city ("Being homophobic is sooo gay" read one), and up at Durham Pride last month, a Beyoncé blackface performance was scheduled to take place. And then today, Theresa May decided to release the most creepy, insincere celebratory Pride video we've ever seen.
While you can't really imagine May getting down with some rainbow facepaint (the wildest thing that she's ever done, of course, is run through some fields of wheat), it's still a particularly awful production which shows her as stiffly robotic and unemotional.
May's platitudes mainly revolve promoting equality. Flanked by dull leather-bound books she awkwardly jerks around and says: "Pride brings people together in joyful celebration of our values of freedom, tolerance and equality. It is a vivid display of the diversity which makes London one of the greatest cities in the world.
And at its heart, it is about a simple thing: love. That’s why this year’s theme – ‘Love happens here’ couldn’t be more appropriate. It captures perfectly the warmth of this wonderful city and its people.”
But her words ring hollow considering her recent deal with the homophobic DUP, the Northern Irish party currently propping up the incumbent Tory government. For context, one of the DUP's former ministers, Iris Robinson, described homosexuality as “disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked and vile”. This was only in 2008.
And although she's improved in recent years, May's own voting record on LGBT rights is pretty abysmal. The daughter of a vicar, she has voted for legislation which would have hampered the lives of gay people looking to have carefree sex and relationships.
In 2000, she voted against the repeal of anti-gay school policy Section 28, in 2002 she opposed letting same-sex couples adopt, and although in 2004 she voted in favour of civil partnerships, she's since abstained from a number of LGBT-rights related votes rather than being supportive. During her time as Home Secretary she was also criticised for not doing enough to help LGBT asylum seekers.
This year marks 50 years since parliament repealed the laws which criminalised homosexuality in England and Wales, and from the looks of the pictures of Pride, today was a joyful celebration of that massive step forward towards an equal society.
But the fight is ongoing and it's still tough to be an LGBT person in the UK. As Jeremy Corbyn highlighted at a recent PMQs, half of LGBT people in London have experienced hate crime.
Watch the video below
