GGR welcomes Westminster Report
“GGR celebrates Gay Pride low-key but in respect ,” says the group
Equality Rights Group GGR has today welcomed publication of a Report by the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee at Westminster into issues affecting the Overseas Territories. The group’s Chairman, Felix Alvarez, was one of the contributors to the Committee’s deliberations. In its Report, the Committee has recommended that the British Government “should take steps to ensure that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender status is made illegal in all Overseas Territories.”
Mr Alvarez says that “the Committee in its Report summarises the evidence it received on all sides, and it is clear they were not convinced on reasons why Gibraltar and Overseas Territories in general should continue to discriminate against same-sex couples.”
“The Report’s recommendations, along with recent requirements by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe obliging the UK Government to deliver on equalisation of the age of gay consent in Gibraltar means that Mr Caruana’s homophobic policies are increasingly embarrassing both the UK and Gibraltar abroad, whilst painting the GSD into an increasingly internally divided corner locally.
“As Chairman of GGR and using the now traditional summer period for celebrating Gay Pride worldwide, I am happy to express gratitude on behalf of Gibraltar’s gay and lesbian citizens not only to those Gibraltarians who are increasingly supporting sexual minority friends and relatives, but who also more and more disapprove of intolerance. Also to both Joe Bossano and Keith Azopardi, as indeed all members of the GSLP and PDP, for their clear and unequivocal policies in this regard. It is not GGR’s style nor policy to organise pride parades in Gibraltar. Instead, we celebrate Pride in typical low-key Gibraltarian fashion, which nonetheless is rooted in respect and celebration,” the statement ended.
Equality Rights Group GGR has today welcomed publication of a Report by the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee at Westminster into issues affecting the Overseas Territories. The group’s Chairman, Felix Alvarez, was one of the contributors to the Committee’s deliberations. In its Report, the Committee has recommended that the British Government “should take steps to ensure that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender status is made illegal in all Overseas Territories.”
Mr Alvarez says that “the Committee in its Report summarises the evidence it received on all sides, and it is clear they were not convinced on reasons why Gibraltar and Overseas Territories in general should continue to discriminate against same-sex couples.”
“The Report’s recommendations, along with recent requirements by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe obliging the UK Government to deliver on equalisation of the age of gay consent in Gibraltar means that Mr Caruana’s homophobic policies are increasingly embarrassing both the UK and Gibraltar abroad, whilst painting the GSD into an increasingly internally divided corner locally.
“As Chairman of GGR and using the now traditional summer period for celebrating Gay Pride worldwide, I am happy to express gratitude on behalf of Gibraltar’s gay and lesbian citizens not only to those Gibraltarians who are increasingly supporting sexual minority friends and relatives, but who also more and more disapprove of intolerance. Also to both Joe Bossano and Keith Azopardi, as indeed all members of the GSLP and PDP, for their clear and unequivocal policies in this regard. It is not GGR’s style nor policy to organise pride parades in Gibraltar. Instead, we celebrate Pride in typical low-key Gibraltarian fashion, which nonetheless is rooted in respect and celebration,” the statement ended.
posted by EQUALITY RIGHTS GGR @ Monday, July 07, 2008
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