David Cameron must condemn comments made by Conservative politician Roger Helmer at the weekend or risk associating his party with highly offensive homophobic views.
That’s the message from Labour MEPs after the Tory representative in the Strasbourg parliament caused a storm of protest on Twitter after publishing a homophobic tweet.
On Sunday 16 January, Roger Helmer tweeted: “Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to “turn” a consenting homosexual?”
Many users of the social networking site have reacted angrily, with a #sackhelmer hash tag beginning to be used by campaigners.
Labour’s leader in the European Parliament, Glenis Willmott MEP, called on David Cameron to distance his party from the statement: “The Conservative Party chose Roger Helmer as a political candidate. If David Cameron says nothing then he will be confirming the fact that he still leads the nasty party. We need to hear from the Prime Minister whether he considers these statements to be appropriate for someone elected on a Conservative Party platform.”
Labour’s Michael Cashman MEP, who chairs a European Parliament group dealing with gay rights, added: “Roger Helmer’s ignorance is breath taking. He fails to understand the distinct issues of gender identity and sexual preference. Homosexuality is not something that needs ‘curing’ unless you want to escape the awful persecuting environment which is created by statements like Helmer’s.
“David Cameron made much of his ‘apology’ for the Tory Party’s discrimination of gay people through Section 28 and he claims that his party has changed. If he is sincere, he must take action against Helmer. If he does nothing, he will be condoning Helmer’s view and proving that the Tories are still the nasty party without the guts to stand up for minorities.”
