SNP to support establishment of LGBTI rights envoy
By Ben Kelly
Scottish First Minister and leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon, today addressed the Out for Indy Conference 2014 and called for the establishment of an LGBTI rights envoy within the UK Foreign Office.
In her address, Ms Sturgeon said that a team of SNP MPs elected at the General Election would support the creation of a special envoy within the Foreign Office “to promote the rights of LGBTI people throughout the world, as an integral part of UK foreign policy.”
Ms Sturgeon pledged the SNP to support any moves at Westminster to create a post of LGBTI right envoy, and acknowledged that the Labour party also advocated this move said “I have no hesitation in working across party boundaries to bring it into being.”
She also noted that Democratic members of the US Congress had recently introduced legislation to appoint such a diplomatic post within their Department of State to prevent discrimination and advance the rights of LGBTI people worldwide. Sturgeon also said that attending one of Scotland’s first same sex marriages was “one of my proudest moments since becoming First Minister” and said we now have a duty “to match our actions at home with our ambitions for the wider world.”
Out for Independence is the LGBTI wing of the SNP, and their conference is being held today in Glasgow Caledonian University.