Meet Philip Anschutz, Prescott's Homophobic New Best Friend

John Prescott didn't just stay at Philip Anschutz's ranch, he's met the American Republican-supporting billionaire on no less than seven occasions. Despite initially denying it, he also visited his super casnino in Australia "just to see what it was like". I'm sure Mr Anschutz has many admirable qualities, but apparently a liberal social attitude is not one of them. Take this from an article today on Pink News...

In the past, Mr Anschutz has donated large sums of money to Colorado for Family Values, an organisation with explicit homophobic views. He is also a major patron of the Republican Party and funded 'Amendment 2', a voter initiated ballot to overturn gay rights in the state of Colorado. He is also a major donor for the Institute for American Values, who campaign against single parent families.Voters approved 'Amendment 2' in 1992 which changed the state's constitution to explicitly ban laws that protected gay and lesbian people from discrimination based on their sexual orientation.The approval of the amendment by voters led for some activists to label Colorado as a “hate state”, and there were mass protests by LGBT campaigners outside of churches. However, in 1996, the United States Supreme court declared that the amendment was unconstitutional. "We find nothing special in the protections Amendment 2 withholds," said the then Justice Anthony Kennedy. "These are protections taken for granted by most people either because they already have them or do not need them."Condemning the decision for Mr Prescott to stay at Mr Anschut's ranch, the human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell told PinkNews.co.uk: “It is highly inappropriate for the Deputy Prime Minister to accept hospitality from someone who is a hard-line homophobe and who clearly stands to benefit from casino franchises that are being dolled out by Mr Prescott's government.“I doubt that Mr Prescott would accept the hospitality for an owed racist or anti-Semite. Why then is he prepared to be hosted by a bigoted homophobes?” Commenting on the fact that Mr Anshutz, already owner of the Millennium Dome will be a major employer in an area with a large and growing gay community, Mr Tatchell said: “It's worrying that a homophobic tycoon like Anshutz is going to be a major employer in Greenwich, when quite obviously in his heart he doesn't believe that gay people deserve equal respect and rights.” Ben Summerskill, the Chief Executive of the gay lobbying and campaign group, Stonewall, told PinkNews.co.uk:“Given that his voting record is quite good I would be rather surprised if they found anything congenial to discuss over supper. I find it curious that John Prescott would think that he had anything in common with Mr Anshutz given that John is a particularly liberal person.”Mr Summerskill added with a laugh: “I think Mr Anshutz is unlikely to be turning away the pink pound should he win the license to open up Britain's first super casino.”A spokesperson for John Prescott told PinkNews.co.uk: “The Deputy Prime Minister has to deal with people that come within his remit. His remit was to meet Mr Anshutz to discuss the regeneration of the Greenwich Peninsula and nothing else.”

That last bit is interesting. "His remit was to meet Mr Anshutz to discuss the regeneration of the Greenwich Peninsula and nothing else.” Funny, I thought he was discussing William Wilberforce... And if he was discussing the regeneration of the Greenwich peninsula, then surely a new casino had to form part of that discussion? And if he was only there to discuss William Wilberforce the stay was clearly registrable with the Register of Members' Interests as it was to do with his role as a constituency MP rather than his Ministerial role.