Baroness Knight: Gays can’t have children, but are good at antiques
Speaking on the BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast Show, Baroness Knight, who gave a speech in the House of Lords against equal marriage, and said that gay people are “delightful, very artistic”, reiterated her stance against the measure, and that marriage should be primarily for procreation.
Speaking on 5 Live, Baroness Knight claimed she proposed Section 28, which banned the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools, because 4-year-olds were being “taught how to do the homosexual act.”
She said: “My moving of clause 28 was not against homosexuals, it was against what was happening in many schools, that children as young as 4 and 5 were being taught how to do the homosexual act.
“I made it quite clear that I also would have opposed what’s called straight sex, being taught to children as young as 4 as well.
“I really felt that children should be left to their innocence particularly at that stage, it’s too young. I made that point very clear, but it’s always been misunderstood, because I have absolutely no reason to suppose at all that homosexuals are less able to have a loving relationship.”
When asked about her speech in the House of Lords, during which she said: “Homosexuals are often delightful people, very artistic”, she initially did not respond, but reiterated her stance that there is no such thing as equality.
She said: “This bill is supposed to be all about equality. The trouble is people can’t be made to ensure equality, because as I said frankly a rather higher authority than any of us, has already decreed that we’re all different., and thank God for it.
“Some are lazier, more clever, more tall, more short, some are blind, while others can see, and you can’t change those things by a parliamentary law.”
When asked again by the presenter about her assertion that gay people are “very artistic”, she said: “They are!”
“We’ve all got friends who are homosexuals, they’re often extremely clever, very good at artistic things. Very good at things like antiques, knowledgeable. No reason at all to say that they’re not loving, I wasn’t saying that.”
Asked what she meant in her speech by there being “a higher authority”, on marriage than Parliament, and whether she meant God, the Baroness denied that she was talking about God.
She said: “Choose what you like, I wasn’t trying to bring God into it. We all know the truth, it’s round about us. You know people that are not so clever as you are. You know people who are lazier and taller, and all the rest of us. We can’t be equal, and I think this bill makes the mistake of suggesting that a parliamentary law can make us all equal, because I also said marriage isn’t just about love, it’s about creating a framework for children.”
The Baroness was then asked to respond to the idea that, “if you have a problem with same-sex marriage, don’t marry someone of the same sex,” to which she asserted that marriage should be primarily for procreation.
“Marriage is not just about love. It’s about creating children. After all, the whole setup realy is about people created to create children, to create children,” she said.
She then denied that gay coupes can have children, saying: “No they can’t. Two men can’t… I’m talking about what marriage was for, and I think the bringing up of children is very important in that you have a father and a mother. To say that it doesn’t matter, that you can have two fathers, I just don’t think is so.”
Baroness Knight was then asked what she would have said fifty years ago, if she knew a Conservative Government would be pushing for equal marriage.
She said: “I probably would have laughed, because there have been many changes, and many of them have been very good. I would never for one moment suggested there ought to be the kind of treatment of homosexuals that Oscar Wilde had, or Turing had, that wonderful man who did a lot to save our lives in the War.”
“I’m not against homosexuals, I’m for children,” she concluded.
Ahead of yesterday’s vote, the former Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, Lord Dear, had tabled a ‘fatal’ amendment to deny the bill its second reading.
