Workers' Liberty

RUTH Kelly is to leave the Department of Education and take up responsibility for local government, which has provoked sighs of relief in some quarters, particularly teachers and parents not keen on religious schools. Surely her more off-the-wall, Catholic fundamentalist opinions will have no effect in her new job?

Hold on, though — Kelly’s new job also includes responsibility for women and equality, something the government has carefully not publicised. And this is the Opus Dei fellow-traveller whom a fellow-fundamentalist praised for being “straight down the line” on opposition to all abortion!

Kelly says she is “passionate” about equality, but evidently this doesn’t include gay and lesbian people either. Kelly abstained on all of the government’s progressive measures including equalising the age of consent, allowing gays and lesbians to adopt, establishing civil partnerships and scrapping Section 28.

As Benjamin Cohen, editor of Pink News, says, “It is unclear what exactly Ms Kelly thinks about gay people, but the views of Opus Dei are unequivocal. It considers homosexuality to be a sin and a source of evil.” This latest Cabinet role would seem to be, like Education Secretary, another job for which the bigoted Ruth Kelly is entirely unfit.