UK: Gay ex-top cop loses London Mayoral race

Link: GayNZ.com

Excerpt:

caption: Brian Paddick

 

Formerly the highest-ranking openly gay police officer in the world, Brian Paddick has lost his bid to become Mayor of London.

Paddick ran for the Liberal Democrats and mounted a law and order campaign, but came in second.

Boris Johnson, a Conservative, defeated Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone in a race that became more about Prime Minister Brown's sagging popularity than Johnson's platform.

The election of Johnson now has gays in the capital worried. The new mayor is opposed to same-sex unions and has attacked attempts in his own party to reach out to gays.

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More, from the AP, about the new Conservative mayor of London:

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Uncombed and often awkward, Johnson is known both his wit and for remarks that are have offended minority communities and others.

He labeled members of the Commonwealth "piccaninnies" — a derogatory term for black people, referred to Africans as having "watermelon smiles," and likened his party's internal conflicts "to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing."

Johnson's scorn has also been directed at gay marriage, which became legal in Britain in 2005. In his book "Friends, Voters, Countrymen," he said that if homosexuals could marry then why not "three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog."

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[jw]