Last month I exposed how the Conservatives have allied themselves in the European Parliament with Valdemar Tomasevski, a Lithuanian MEP who has described homosexuality as a 'perversion', and who voted in his national parliament earlier this year for a draconian new law banning public discussion of homosexuality.
Today, on Left Foot Forward, Will Straw publishes striking new evidence of Tomasevski's homophobia:
David Cameron’s Lithuanian partner has revealed his homophobic views in an email to Left Foot Forward. Valdemar Tomasevski MEP – leader of the ‘Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania’ and a member of David Cameron’s alliance of far right Europeans – describes homosexuality as an “evil” from which children should be protected and says “we cannot allow these people to claim … that homosexuality is normal.”
Tomasevski's anti-gay beliefs were set out in an email to Straw after Left Foot Forward requested an English translation of a Lithuanian interview appearing on the MEP's website. The email, which also describes Tomasevski's opposition to almost all abortions, says:
“I accept existence of homosexuals – we are tolerant state. But homosexuality is also a very good example of the wrong understanding of tolerance. We have to respect every human being, including those who experience sexual attraction to the same-sex.
But we cannot allow these people to claim and explain even to children at kindergarten that homosexuality is normal and encourage people to become homosexuals. Those who talk about tolerance should understand that and respect the constitutional right to protecting children from evil.”
The so-called 'Law on the Protection of Minors' supported by Tomasevski does far more than merely prohibit teachers from giving information about homosexuality to kindergarten-age children. Rather, it bans discussion of homosexuality in any media that could be accessed by minors. According to Amnesty, 'the law deprives young people of their right to freedom of expression and access to information and risks isolating children who are already amongst the most at risk of violence at school or within the family.' In September, the European Parliament passed a resolution criticising the law, and pointing out its incompatibility with European human rights documents. As I have previously noted, Conservative MEPs refused to support that resolution.
Straw's new findings certainly reinforce the need to ensure that the Conservatives are pressed for answers to these questions, which I asked earlier this week:
* Why did Conservative MEPs, unlike their Labour and Lib Dem counterparts, refuse to support a European Parliamentary resolution, in September of this year, criticising Lithuania for its passing of a law that has been condemned by human rights watchdogs as an abuse of LGBT and young people's human rights?
* What assurances can the Conservatives provide that their decision not to support the resolution criticising Lithuania was not in any way influenced by their alliance with Lithuanian MEP Valdemar Tomasevski, who is a supporter of the law in question?
* What assurances can the Conservatives give that their positions on homosexuality, and a raft of other human rights issues arising at the European level, will not in future be decided, in whole or in part, by considerations of loyalty to their socially illiberal new allies in the European Conservatives and Reformists group?
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