- Gay Pride, which took place in London yesterday, is now
a recruiting ground for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office...
-
- The more traditionally minded Foreign Office mandarin
might have felt a little uneasy.
-
- A respectful distance from the stalls offering "sensual
lubricant" and a monthly periodical called Manzone, next to the bright
pink Metropolitan Police stand and the Prison Service's bouncy castle,
stood the men and woman from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In rather
fetching blue T-shirts.
-
- Tim, Jaz and Judith had left the confines of Whitehall
to join the "community village" at yesterday's Pride in the Park
celebration for homosexuals and lesbians in London's Hyde Park.
-
- Their mission was to show the Foreign Office's commitment
to "diversity". As Sir Michael Jay, the permanent under-secretary
at the Foreign office, announced last week: "I hope our presence at
this festival this weekend will encourage many who would not previously
have thought of a career in the diplomatic service to look again at the
opportunities on offer."
-
- Once, after the revelations that homosexual spies such
as Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt had been passing secrets to the Russians,
a gay pride event might not have been top of the list of suitable Foreign
Office recruitment grounds.
-
- Now, as middle-aged men in leather strolled past followed
by their younger counterparts with bare chests and angels' wings taped
to their backs, the Foreign Office representatives positively beamed with
enthusiasm.
-
- No, they insisted, the days of signing a declaration
stating that you were not vulnerable to blackmail on the grounds of your
sexuality were long gone. Indeed, being a homosexual is no longer a bar
to obtaining a security clearance.
-
- "Not since, oh . . . 1992," said Judith, 30,
a member of the Eastern Adriatic Department. Jaz, 35, and a member of the
Foreign Office for the past nine years, was forthright. "Problems
with taking your boyfriend to diplomatic receptions? I've done it. I've
been there with my boyfriend. What can they do?" Nowhere in the world,
it seems was there a problem.
-
- "For example," said Tim, a 45-year-old who
has been at the Foreign Office for more than 20 years, "I was in Dubai
and there's a gay scene there, of sorts. Yes, you do have to be a bit careful
with your public displays of affection but out there men and women also
have to be careful of showing affection to each other."
-
- Tim hesitated. "Well, maybe in Saudi Arabia it might
be difficult but would you really want to go there?"
-
- Some places are beacons of equality. Judith grinned:
"Papua New Guinea, I suppose. That's our model post, isn't it? The
ambassador is out there with his partner. A lot of the consular section
in Chicago are 'out'. There's a gay guy in a senior role in Baghdad at
the moment."
-
- "There's a diplomatic yearbook," Tim said.
"It gives their names, their posts and also the names of their partners."
Indeed, the Diplomatic Service List confirms that Simon Mansfield Scadden,
the British High Commissioner in Papua New Guinea, is accompanied by his
partner, Pablo Ganguli.
-
- None of the group had experienced hostility from their
employers. Indeed they were all members of FLAGG, the Foreign Office Lesbian
and Gay Group. Along with frisbees and colourful maps of the "New
Europe", they handed out the Foreign Office leaflet Out and About.
It explains that FLAGG "was set up in 1998 and is now established
as a key staff support group within the FCO".
-
- Discrimination in the Foreign Office was fast becoming
extinct, Judith said. "There must be a few but nowadays, if anything,
people tend to over-compensate."
-
- "My girlfriend has just been posted to Japan so
I went to personnel and asked if I could be posted to South Korea to be
with her. South Korea is a very traditional country but was there a problem?
No."
-
- The stall, which also dispensed advice for homosexual
travellers, was decorated with deckchairs and a mock paddling pool. "A
passport to fun," said the logo on Jaz's Foreign Office-issue T-shirt.
He smiled invitingly. "So are you going to join then?"
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/07/27/
npride27.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/07/27/ixnewstop.html
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