Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg: I love that Britain is a place you can be gay and proud
In his speech to Liberal Democrat Spring Conference, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has praised Britain’s LGBT rights record.
Mr Clegg told delegates: “I look at what’s happening in places like Russia, where the government is effectively criminalising homosexuality, and I love that Britain is a place where you can be gay and proud – and now you can get married too.”
“Those days should be long behind us now and for those countries and those governments and regimes who don’t see it that way I think they have to move with the times.”
Speaking more recently, Mr Clegg told LBC: “It’s just the most regressive law imaginable, it has a very chilling effect, intimidating effect, on many people in the lesbian, bisexual, gay community in Russia and elsewhere.
“It sends out an appalling signal. I am not in favour of sports boycotts; in fact I am a big fan of winter sports. I will be cheering our athletes as much as anyone else when watching the Sochi Games, now and in the coming days. But, you know, does that mean I am going to go there?
“No, I am not going to go there and I certainly wouldn’t want any Liberal Democrat minister to go there given the strength of feeling in my party and I feel this very strongly as well, that what Russia has done, on that legislation, is just plain wrong.”
