Stephen Green Flashbacks, Pt 1: Pickin’ on the sick

Being the first in a series of articles resulting from digging around the archives for old stories about Stephen Green (thanks to our diligent Mediawatchwatch researcher).

This first one demonstrates that the Maggie’s Centres episode was not the first time that Green deemed it appropriate to attack the seriously ill in the name of the Lord.

The Independent, August 27th, 1991 reports on the reaction of the Conservative Family Campaign, of which Stephen Green was once press officer and chairman, to a declaration of the rights of people with HIV and Aids. The declaration was launched by 17 voluntary organisations, including the Haemophilia Society and the National Aids Trust. It had the backing of politicians and church leaders.

Green said:

It is outrageous for Christian bishops to support the ‘right’ of people with HIV variously to start a family, mingle with other prisoners in jails, prepare food for the infirm, treat patients . . .
The bishops are in the unseemly company of seasoned homosexual campaigners. The support of these anti-Christian individuals and bodies confirms the ‘declaration’ as a Trojan horse containing a hidden agenda of homosexual rights.

You’ve got to hand it to him – as paragon of uninformed bigotry he has few peers. Tory MP Jerry Hayes resigned as a sponsor of the CFC as a result of this “offensive statement”. It wasn’t long before Green would be doing the same…


2 Responses to “Stephen Green Flashbacks, Pt 1: Pickin’ on the sick

  1. Shaun Hollingworth says:

    But all this was a long time ago.
    Perhaps he may be more tolerant of such people nowadays ?

    Perhaps pigs might fly….

  2. Dr Christopher Shell says:

    ‘Rights’ issues are intrinsically complex, since rights don’t exist in nature – they exist only in law and in convention. Therefore it is not usually possible to assume that certain rights either exist or (even if they do exist in law) are justified or coherent.

    It’s usually best to maximise rights provided that they do not impinge on or lessen the comparable rights of others. Since they often do just that, the issue is a complex one & needs to be treated as such.