The Queen has expressed support in the fight against discrimination.
Yesterday, Queen Elizabeth II gave a speech for the State Opening of Parliament. The speech focused heavily on the logistics of the Brexit, but also included a line about LGBTQ rights in the UK.
“Our government will surely make further progress to tackle the gender pay gap and discrimination. People are usually discriminated on the basis of their race, faith, gender, disability, or sexual orientation,” she said.
This is the first time since 2003 that the Queen has mentioned LGBTQ rights in a speech. At that time, she vowed to increase, “equality and social justice. All by bringing forward legislation on the registration of civil partnerships between same-sex couples.”
Despite this, the Queen has yet to express her personal beliefs when it comes to homosexuality and gay love. Perhaps the reason she hasn’t is due to her status as the head of the Church of England. Despite gay marriage being legal in the UK, the Anglican Church only recognizes same-sex marriage if the couple were husband and wife when they took vows. Meaning, one of the partners must have gone through gender reassignment surgery since getting married.
That said, other members of the British Royal family have vocalized their personal support of LGBTQ people.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reaffirmed their support of gay rights just before their big wedding last year. The couple spoke on a variety of issues with delegates and activists at the Commonwealth Youth Forum in England. Australian Jacob Thomas, who won a Queen’s Young Leaders award for helping to reduce the suicide rate within the LBGTQ community in Australia, stated how he personally talked to the couple.
“Miss Markle said, and these were her exact words, ‘This is a basic human rights issue, not one about sexuality,’ ” he told reporters.
“Prince Harry said that what was so amazing was that 10 or so years ago, we wouldn’t have been having this conversation and how incredible it was that we now were,” Jacob added.
“Both Prince Harry and Miss Markle said they would put LGBT issues at the front of their work,” Jonah Chinga, an LGBTQ activist from Kenya, added to reporters.
Then earlier this year, Prince William shared that he’d be “obviously absolutely ok” with the possibility of his kids coming out as LGBTQ. William stated that he started to seriously consider this situation after becoming a parent.
“Do you know what, I’ve been giving that some thought recently because a couple of other parents said that to me as well. I think, you really don’t start thinking about that until you are a parent, and I think – obviously absolutely fine by me.”
Though, the prince shared that he was worried about how society would see his children. Being royalty already puts them in the spotlight, being LGBTQ royalty would certainly come with a lot of societal pressure.
“It worries me not because of them being gay, it worries me as to how everyone else will react and perceive it and then the pressure is then on them,” said the prince.
