Scotland's LGBT community feeling demonised shames us

The Herald Scotland

18-05-2025

We'd both grown up in Northern Ireland and the conflict was still unfolding. We wanted to have children while in our mid-20s and had no intention of raising them in a divided and bloody country.
However, there was a secondary reason we chose Scotland. It seemed a country ready to embrace the future, somewhere equality mattered. Ireland, both north and south, remained a place of bigotry in the 1990s. Today, the Republic has taken huge steps forward, and even the north has progressed, despite its legion of problems.
My wife and I were proved right as our newly-adopted country ditched the homophobic Section 28 laws and legislated for equal marriage. Soon, Scotland was being praised as one of the most LGBT-friendly places on Earth. It felt good to live in a nation of such modernity and decency.
Three decades later, so many of those positive steps forward have been walked far, far back into an ugly past. Today, our LGBT community is fearful, isolated and feels demonised. This should be a source of great shame for Scotland.
Read more from Neil Mackay:
In a joint statement issued this week, 23 Scottish Pride organisations said they were 'deeply alarmed by the escalation in the demonisation' of LGBT people 'both at home and abroad'.
Their community was being used as 'political pawns', it was said. There were accusations that an anti-LGBT lobby was influencing 'both the UK and Scottish governments'.
Glasgow Pride has taken the step of banning political parties from attending its annual event, given the atmosphere that has unfolded in Scotland.
It is astonishing how quickly times have changed. Not so long ago, nearly every politician imaginable saw Pride as an easy photo-op. Now politicians are only welcome if they leave their party allegiance at home.
Patrick Harvie, of the Scottish Greens, has said that the LGBT community is now 'living in fear'. He told John Swinney during First Minister's Questions that the decision to ban political parties from Pride 'never even happened in the worst days of political homophobia in the 80s'.
Swinney, to his credit, said he both recognised and sympathised with Harvie's points, adding that 'the climate of discourse on this issue is absolutely unacceptable'.
These are fine words, and it's important that Scotland's leader puts such a statement on the public record. However, like most political parties, the SNP has its share of members who have contributed to this shaming state of affairs.
To underscore just how bad matters have gotten, the international human rights index which rates nations according to how LGBT people are treated has seen the UK fall to its lowest ever ranking.
The UK came first in 2015. This week we learned that Britain is now ranked second worst in Western Europe and Scandinavia for LGBT protections. After falling every year since 2015, we now only outrank Italy. This year alone, the UK slipped six places.
Dr Rebecca Don Kennedy, CEO of the Equality Network, described it as 'shameful', adding: 'Scotland, when analysed separately, has in the past been considered progressive and a beacon of LGBTI+ equality and human rights. That seems to be quickly deteriorating.'
Almost nine years ago to the day, this very paper ran a headline proclaiming that Scotland was 'the most gay-friendly country in Europe'. That was based on rankings by the same organisation which now puts the UK almost at the bottom of the table.
Back in 2015, Scottish politicians from across the spectrum were being honoured for their contributions to LGBT rights. Pink News awarded both then Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, who was the first openly LGBT leader of a major British political party, and former First Minister Alex Salmond who was given a lifetime achievement award as an 'ally'.
Salmond spoke of how 'proud' he was at the changes which had been wrought in Scotland. In 2016, the Guardian newspaper was running think-pieces with headlines like 'The tartan-rainbow: why it's great to be gay in Scotland'.
Reading the piece now, with long lists of positive steps forward, it seems like a missive from another time. So many successes have been erased in the culture wars which have gripped this country in the last decade.
I have American friends who are packing their bags and moving with their children to this country as they no longer wish to live in the USA given the current political climate.
I also have LGBT friends who are packing their bags and leaving the UK – including Scotland – because of the political climate.
What's happening should make us stop and consider the path we are on. This is not how a nation should treat minorities. We are all the same, no matter the colour of our skin, our religion, or who we love.
Usually, in such columns, there is an onus upon the writer to come up with solutions to the problem they put under the microscope. The only onus here is upon mainstream political parties, with the notable exception of the Greens who have stuck by the LGBT community through thick and thin.