The UK’s PM Pull’s Embarrassing Petition

Veteran UK gay rights protester and campaigner Peter Tatchell believes that Prime Minister David Cameron’s office has closed down early a petition against the Pope’s forthcoming UK visit. Tatchell said, “This looks like an attempt to prevent the petition from embarrassing the government by gaining a large number of signatures in the run-up to Pope Benedict’s visit to the UK in September.”

The petition was on the website of ’10 Downing Street’ the home and office of the UK’s Prime Minister, when trying to access it, the message on the screen is ”This petition is now closed, its deadline had passed.”

“The Prime Minister’s office originally agreed that the petition would remain open until the Pope arrived in the UK” Claims Tatchell, “But his officials declared it closed on 6 June and only informed me of this decision yesterday.”

The petition had been frozen since early April, on the grounds that the general election was on the way and it’s not re-opened. However, even though it was only online and open for a short period of time, it still gathered 12,339 signatures - one of them mine!

The Conservative Government of David Cameron are fully behind the Pope’s visit, including it’s already spiraling security costs at a time when pretty much everything else controlled by the public purse is being cut by around 40%

Jason Shaw

GayAgenda.com’s very own UK Correspondent

Jason’s personal blog is The Seafront Diaries, an honest and open account of life from a slightly eccentric English gent!
A march and rally against the Pope has been slated for Saturday 18 September in London, organised by The Protest the Pope coalition.