Petition calling on MPs with a link to a charity with co-sponsred a 'gay cure' event to distance themselves from the organisation
A religious charity which provides free interns to MPs has been linked to a ‘gay cure’ event, and the MPs benefiting from its support are being called to distance themselves.
CARE, a Christian charity, which provides interns for 17 MPs including South West Devon’s Gary Streeter, co-sponsored a ‘gay cure’ conference in 2009.
In 2000 Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw described CARE as `a bunch of homophobic bigots‘, and even The Telegraph said ‘Christian Action Research and Education (Care) has borrowed the tactics of America’s religious Right in its attempts to affect policy‘.
Those tactics involve, along with the ‘gay cure’ conference, campaigning against the legalisation of equal marriage rights and actively fundraising to provide sex and relationship education material to primary school age children.
When we first covered Gary Streeter’s relationship with CARE (we’re waiting to hear what he has to say about these latest revelations), he said the group was ‘a moderate compassionate group trying to make the country better‘.
A petition has been set up calling for the MPs with CARE interns to publicly distance themselves from the organisation, as David Lammy has done.
The petition site says: “We are concerned that by accepting material support from CARE and actively participating in its Educational Leadership Programme, which seeks to place interns with Christians in public life, the MPs listed below [check out the site] could be seen to be implicitly supporting the views of the charity and, in turn, their co-sponsorship of a conference held on 24th and 25th April 2009 at which discussed “Therapeutic approaches to and understandings of Same-Sex Attraction.”
While we wait to hear if Gary Streeter thinks he is ‘implicitly supporting the views’ of CARE, pop over to the petition site to find out which MPs are involved and add your signature.
