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Gay News: Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans has come out as gay.
By: Nigel Robinson
Nigel Evans
Nigel Evans
Tory MP comes out
20 December 2010
Evans’s homosexuality has been an open secret at Westminster for some time, but the MP told the Daily Mail that he decided to come out following a Labour MP’s threat to out him.
Evans, who is Conservative MP for Ribble Valley and one of three Deputy Speakers, would not name the MP, but claimed that he wanted to avoid such “nastiness”, and hoped that his honesty would encourage other gay MPs to come out.
“I thought, this is just daft, I am not gong to live a lie anymore,” he told the newspaper.
Evans, who is from Swansea, also discussed it with fellow Welshman and rugby star Gareth Thomas, who came out last year.
“If people like Gareth, who was married, can come out, it should be no big deal for me,” he said.
Nigel Evans’s announcement comes as ParliOut, a support group for gay politicians and Westminster staff, is launched today.
The group is supported by gay rights organisation Stonewall, and Evans will be its vice-president.
Despite his sexuality Evans’s record on voting in favour of pro-gay legislation has been disappointing.
On Stonewall’s survey of MPs’ voting records in the previous Parliament, he scored only 36 out of a possible 100 percentage points.
He also supported Section 28 which banned the teaching of homosexuality in schools, but now admits that he was wrong and that young people should not have been told that being gay is wrong.
Nigel Evans is now the twenty-second openly gay Member of Parliament, out of the 650 MPs sitting in the House of Commons.
