British Conservatives Woo the Gay Vote

LONDON (April 17) -- It's an image that would leave many American Republicans spluttering with outrage: their top national candidate posing on the cover of a gay magazine.

But a pairing that would be unthinkable in the United States has become a reality on the other side of the pond. A specially shot portrait of David Cameron, who will become prime minister if the Conservative Party wins control of Parliament in an election on May 6, is splashed across the front of the March issue of Attitude magazine. The headline is a mock classified ad: "Dave -- 43 -- Westminster -- Looking for Gay Love." In an interview inside, Cameron, 43, proclaims, "I support gay adoption."

Three weeks before one of the most closely contested British elections in decades, the Conservative Party, known as the Tories, has embarked on an unprecedented campaign to woo gay voters. The party is promising to fight homophobic bullying in schools and wipe clean the records of men convicted under archaic laws banning gay sex. The Tories are even pledging to extend their proposed pro-marriage tax break to gay partners in civil unions.

They hope to wrest gay voters away from Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party, which became the default choice for many gay voters alienated by Conservative policies in the 1980s. Labour-dominated parliaments of recent years approved civil partnerships for gay couples as well as a landmark anti-discrimination law.

Cameron is keen to change that. "I have made it clear that the Conservative Party supports the gay community and wholeheartedly supports gay equality," he wrote last week for the gay news service Pink News.

"The Conservative Party has recognized that this is an issue that should not cause any division within society," says Iain Dale, the first openly gay Conservative candidate for Parliament.

Such statements are strikingly at odds with the Tories' historic record on gay rights, says University of Sussex political scientist Tim Bale, author of "The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron." He says the shift is part of Cameron's broader effort to convince Britons that the Conservative Party, the natural political home for privileged defenders of starchy tradition, is now more inclusive.

"It has to do with a wider attempt to decontaminate the Conservative brand and move it beyond the 'Nasty Party' tag that had been pasted on it," Bale says.

Cameron's willingness to reach out to gay voters is also a product of his age, Dale says. Polls show younger Britons are more accepting of homosexuality than their parents and grandparents.

"Everyone nowadays has gay friends. That wasn't true 20 years ago," Dale says.

But not everyone is convinced that Cameron and his party have had a true change of heart. Cameron was forced on the defensive last week when one of his top advisers was caught on tape saying that B&B owners should be able to turn away gay couples. Gay activists are angry that the official Conservative manifesto released Tuesday made little mention of gay causes.

During a meeting with gay activists, a top Conservative official "unveiled several new gay rights policies, but none of these appeared in the manifesto," says gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. "It was all spin and PR."

Cameron has only "a semblance of sincerity" on gay issues, says the University of Bath's Steve Wharton, who studies gay activism. "We are in an election period where it's important to appeal to as many people as possible," he says. Polls show the election is so close that there is a strong possibility of a "hung Parliament," in which neither the Conservatives nor the opposing Labour Party controls a majority of seats, possibly giving a key swing role to the perennial third party, the Liberal Democrats.

One problem for Cameron, says Bale, is that his gay-rights agenda is not welcome in his party's right wing.

"There is a clash between the leadership's wish to promote itself as strong on gay equality" and some Conservatives' concern "about what they see as the de-Christianization of Britain."

Even so, U.S. gay-rights campaigners can only look wistfully at what's happening across the Atlantic.

The Conservatives' stance "proves that equality can resonate across the ideological spectrum," says Michael Cole of the Human Rights Campaign, a U.S. gay-rights group. "Sadly, the disproportionate power of the far right in American politics has prevented us from moving forward as forcefully."