Hansard Report
House of Lords
October 25th 2012
Treatment of Homosexual Men and Women in the
Developing World
Question for Short Debate
Asked by Lord Lexden
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the treatment of
homosexual men and women in the developing world.
4.37 pm
The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for
spelling out so powerfully and persuasively the scale and horror of the threats faced by many gay
people around the world. Noble Lords will be aware that in 1967 it was the then Archbishop of
Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who spoke in this House to support the decriminalisation of
homosexuality in this country, thus making a clear distinction in British law between a moral and
a criminal issue.
As noble Lords will now know, no such distinction exists in many parts of the world and, as a
result, people are suffering horrendous abuse and even death for being who they are and loving
who they love. Many of us have met people who have shared the most disturbing personal
stories, including a very small number who have been granted asylum on grounds of sexual
orientation in this country.
Others in this debate have rehearsed the ways in which laws criminalising same-sex sexual
activity between adults have been repeatedly found in international law to violate fundamental
human rights, and this debate serves also to highlight effectively the way in which
criminalisation gives rise to persecution. I want, however, to concentrate on the way in which
discriminatory interference in the private sexual conduct of consenting adults is an affront to the
fundamental Christian values of human dignity, tolerance and equality.
It is of course no secret, as others have made clear, that on the ethics of homosexual practice the
churches in general and the Anglican communion bishops in particular are deeply divided, but
that cannot and must not be any basis for equivocating on the central issue of equality before the
law of all human beings whether heterosexual or homosexual. Further, many of us who are
bishops in this country value and treasure our links with particular dioceses around the Anglican
communion. We respect and appreciate the different, and often sharply divided, theological
Hansard Report
approaches which lead to different stances on the ethical issues. But, as the Lambeth Conference
of 1998 made clear, there is not and cannot be any place for homophobia in the church, and all
are to be welcomed regardless of sexual orientation.
Few have spoken on this issue as unequivocally as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said in 2010
at the United Nations High-level Panel on Ending Violence and Criminal Sanctions on the Basis
of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity:
"All over the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are persecuted. They face
violence, torture and criminal sanctions because of how they live and who they love. We make
them doubt that they too are children of God-and this must be nearly the ultimate blasphemy".
Indeed, in recent years, successive statements from the leaders of major Christian denominations
in the West have made similar points, including perhaps most consistently, those from the
Society of Friends, which has stated:
"We affirm the love of God for all people, whatever their sexual orientation, and our conviction
that sexuality is an important part of human beings as created by God, so that to reject people on
the grounds of their sexual behaviour is a denial of God's creation".
The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has issued a direct challenge in his opening speech. He said that
many people the world over are now asking the churches to put their position beyond all doubt,
by saying simply and clearly that criminalisation is wrong. I will put my position beyond all
doubt-and I know I speak for other Members of this Bench-by stating it in as clear terms as I can.
If criminalisation leads, as it evidently does, to gay people concealing their own identity, that
must be wrong; if criminalisation leads to many living in fear, that must be wrong; if
criminalisation leads to the prospect of persecution, arrest, detention and death, that must be
wrong; and if criminalisation means that LGBT people dare not turn to the state when facing hate
crimes and violence, that must be wrong too.
It is within the adult lifetime of most of us in this House that the law was changed in this country
to decriminalise homosexual acts. However, for our children's generation, such a state of affairs
must feel like ancient history-as appropriate to the moral climate of today's society in this
country as the burning of witches. We must all urgently pursue this journey to a completely new
climate in those many countries of the world where same-sex relations are criminal offences. I
very much hope that this debate will serve that cause.