LET’S GO ABROAD IN SEARCH OF MONSTERS

Make prejudice history (Elton John, The Observer, July 3rd, 2005)

Many politicians, from Africa to Asia and Latin America, proclaim that homosexuality is 'not part of our culture', an imported 'European perversion' that needs to be eradicated. 'Those who want to [continue with homosexual activities] must pack up and go back to Europe,' was how President Nujoma put it.

In Colombia, paramilitaries and armed groups have made it their business to target gay people for 'social cleansing' as part of their policing of communities.

In addition to these daily violations, such discrimination undermines the excellent work being undertaken to combat the HIV/Aids epidemic. In Uganda, for example, a radio station was recently fined US$1,000 for broadcasting a talk show that featured sexual-rights activists discussing the need for HIV/Aids services for men who have sex with men.

This is just a snapshot of the discrimination that gay and lesbian people face across the globe today. We need to shine a light on these human-rights violations. Amnesty and its members are doing this work, and it is one of the reasons I became a patron of the organisation.

We hear often that the UK government is committed to the promotion and protection of human rights around the world, and that it makes respect for human rights a condition of many of its foreign relations.

I want our government, which has presided over many positive changes for gay people here in the UK to ensure that ending violations of gay people's fundamental human rights around the world becomes an explicit issue in its diplomatic relations with other countries.

The left does not oppose President Bush’s war on terror because they worry about the arrogance of imposing Western values or because they think democracy is incompatible with Middle Eastern culture. The left opposes President Bush because they do not believe in democracy.