Tebbit: buggery to blame for obesity crisis Ben Townley, Gay.com UK Thursday 27 May, 2004 13:46 | http://uk.gay.com/headlines/6320
Lord Tebbit has continued his one-man tirade against gay men, by claiming the country's current "obesity epidemic" can be blamed on the government's support for "buggery".
The comments came during BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, where the former Conservative cabinet minister was invited to talk about the ongoing problems of obesity across the UK.
Asked what the root causes of the problems were, Tebbit, who was made a peer in 1992, drew a tenuous link between the issue and same-sex relationships.
"The root cause of this problem, like a number of others, is the break down in family life," he said, arguing that families "don't so often eat together" and that "wives are virtually pressurised into feeling they ought to go to work instead of looking after their children".
He said this decline in family life was due to the current government, which he accused of doing "everything it can to promote buggery".
"The government is pursuing the break down of family life - we've had one thing after another, whether its tax policy or social policy that undermines marriage," he said.
"At the House of Lords at the moment, we have this gay marriage bill going through. This doesn't help."
"We don't only have an epidemic of obesity, we have a huge problem with AIDS. And the government's attitude is to do everything it can to promote buggery - knowing that those two are intimately connected."
At this point, Conservative MP Boris Johnson was keen to point out that "I don't think you can say gay marriage is the root cause of obesity".
The comments are unlikely to surprise many onlookers, who have been aware of Lord Tebbit's aversion to gay issues over the years. He has publicly stated both his support for Section 28 and his opposition to same-sex relationships before.
However, Stonewall's Director of Parliamentary Affairs Alan Wardle, who has been monitoring the House of Lords response to the Civil Partnership bill, said he was shocked that Tebbit had managed to incorporate the issue into this argument.
"It's quite alarming that Lord Tebbit manages to get his extreme prejudices into a discussion on obese children," he told Gay.com UK this afternoon.