However, he warns the Tories’ new clothes are nothing more than Oxford Street window dressing, and calls on religious organisations to practise what they preach.
Progress: What is your response to the social attitudes survey findings that negative views of homosexuality have halved since 1983?
Michael Cashman: My general response is that it a brilliant endorsement of the courage that Labour politicians have shown over the past 12 years when we have had the courage to recognise that there were rights that needed to be put fulfilled, and did it in the face of fierce opposition, not the least the media and religious organisations and the Conservative party which tried to trip us up every single step of the way.
Despite the cosy Tory rhetoric it is a wake-up call that they are lagging behind the public – we led it and the Tories haven’t even got the guts to follow us. I say that because I see how they vote in the European parliament, even trying to prevent debates on anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia in eastern Europe, failing to vote on equality legislation here, never mind their Westminster record, which is lamentable.
We need to send out a wake-up call to progressives across the country about what could lost: the rights and freedoms which we have now are not embedded in steel and concrete.
P: What are the prospects of a Tory government for gay equality?
MC: I know that if we have fire and guts in our bellies we can win this election. We need to use a different language – instead of saying ‘cuts’ we have to redefine what public services are in all their elements. Tory cuts would take place with no concern for the effects on people who have nowhere else to turn. We need to wake people up to this as a threat to our very way of life.
You see the Tories, the party, their thinktanks and advisers and it’s clear nothing’s changed. It’s a bit like Oxford Street – they’ve changed the window dressing but it’s the same old party behind.
There is this idea that there is a natural order to politics, that it becomes someone else’s turn to take power. But I’ve always believed that this country is best served by a party whose values stretch across every single family and individual. The longer we are in power the more we can do.
P: How does the Lords’ resistance to extension of equality legislation fit in to this?
MC: Sadly I see the destruction and mayhem that organised religions create across the world, in particular in Africa. In the European parliament I am continually fighting to support equality for LGBT people there and indeed people perceived to be of a different religion or ethnicity. I see the House of Lords, the bishops and associate organised religions that misrepresent doctrine, as being the last bastions of intolerance and perpetrators of lies. The archbishops lecture me that it’s against the teaching of the Bible, but so is usury and there are more than 30 references to lending at high interest rates. When they call for the closure of credit card companies and church-associated building societies, then I might consider them consistent in the application of biblical principle.
Indeed, it is my one sadness is that we haven’t thoroughly reformed the House of Lords.
P: Is time running out for that?
MC: I don’t think so – I am an optimist. Time does not run out for goodness and justice, nor for human beings’ activity and beliefs that are based on those things.
Michael Cashman is Labour MEP for the west Midlands