Why is the BBC preaching to the Commonwealth on gay rights?

Apr 17, 2018 by Jill

by Melanie McDonagh, Spectator:

There’s a curiously two-faced aspect to the British take on the Commonwealth, wouldn’t you say? On the one hand, there’s justifiable contrition about the treatment of the elderly Windrush generation and a general feeling that the Commonwealth leaders assembled for this week’s summit might be justified in taking Britain to task for its cavalier approach to postwar Caribbean immigrants. On the other, when Commonwealth countries get uppity and show signs of not conforming to the social norms of this country, why, they get very short shrift indeed.

There was an ugly little interview this morning on the Today programme which expressed precisely this ambivalence. Homosexual acts are illegal in Trinidad, as in some other Commonwealth countries, so Nick Robinson interrogated one of the defenders of that law, the Anglican bishop, Victor Gill, about it. As an exercise in demonstrating Robinson’s own credentials in this important area, it was an undeniable success; as a demonstration of Establishment contempt for dissent on the question, it was pretty impressive too.

The bishop was in fact quite unequivocal about where he stands: “As a Christian”, he said, “homosexuality is something that the Bible condemns and…from perspective of Christian community…as if this is being forced on us by power brokers who are influencing our government to take us in this new direction…it’s neo-colonialism.”

Our Nick went straight for the standard BBC response, the intellectual equivalent of received pronunciation:

Read here

Read also: Theresa May will bring up LGBTI rights at Commonwealth leader summit by Joe Morgan, Gay Star News