Banks condemn Stonewall ‘Bigot’ award

It’s not often we are able to celebrate a victory, but the announcement from the Queen’s bankers that they will no longer support the Stonewall lobby group’s playground bullying is welcome news.

Coutts Bank have joined Barclays in condemning Stonewall’s insulting ‘Bigot of the year’ award. In an email sent to one of our members on Monday evening they said:

‘Thank you for your email. Coutts are sponsors only of Stonewall’s Writer of the Year Award and have in no way been involved in the judging or support of the Bigot of the Year category. We have advised Stonewall that we will be withdrawing our support of the awards unless they remove this category.’

Coutts remarkable decision comes just one working day after we gave out leaflets about the affair to Coutts employees in a street witness outside their London headquarters in The Strand last Friday afternoon.

We first encouraged our members to pray, write and email to the directors of Barclays, Coutts and Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) on 3rd October concerning their sponsorship of categories of the Stonewall awards and to draw their attention to the ‘bigot’ award.

Barclays immediately condemned the ‘bigot’ award in trenchant terms.  Their ‘Head of Global Diversity’, Mark McLane, said the next day:

‘As part of what is a positive longstanding relationship with Stonewall we were approached to see if we would be willing to sponsor a category for the 2012 Awards, which we agreed to do – the Sports Personality of the Year – on the understanding that the awards are a celebration of diversity and positive impact in our communities.

‘I have recently been made aware of the inclusion of a ‘Bigot of the Year’ category in the awards. Let me be absolutely clear that Barclays does not support that award category either financially, or in principle and have informed Stonewall that should they decide to continue with this category we will not support this event in the future. To label any individual so subjectively and pejoratively runs contrary to our view on fair treatment, and detracts from what should be a wholly positively focused event.’

Going further, Mr McLane said: ‘We have been very clear with Stonewall that we regard the award in question to be beyond the pale and will not sponsor this event in the future should they decide to continue this award category.’

Despite that, Mr McLane continued:

‘This matter apart, it is our view that Stonewall do valuable work in the field of promoting equality, and provide outstanding resource to our communities in the pursuit of becoming more diverse and inclusive.’

Whether Barclays support Stonewall’s new demand for ‘gay marriage’ or not Mr McLane has failed to say.

However, Coutts and PWC, while distancing themselves from the ‘bigot’ award, failed to condemn it. The move by Coutts leaves PWC out on a limb.

Despite the Banks’ condemnation, Stonewall are intent on keeping the ‘bigot’ award, even if it means losing sponsorship for some of the categories. Awash with donations and public money, they are certainly wealthy enough to fund the whole event without the need for the odd £5,000 in prize money.

Ben Summerskill, Stonewall’s Chief Executive, told the Guardian: “We have never called anyone a bigot just because they disagreed with us.” He continued “All the nominees have gone well beyond what anyone normal would call a decent level of public discourse.”

Stonewall said goodbye to Nationwide Building Society’s sponsorship of the whole event this year thanks to a dogged campaign of prayer and action by Christian Voice members from November last year up to its AGM in July 2012.

We are grateful to Christian Concern for joining our campaign against these awards on Monday.  Co-incidentally, Coutts were formulating their shift in position as Christian Concern were putting out an email encouraging their people to lobby the CEO’s of Barclays, Coutts and PWC.  They were able to celebrate the Lord’s victory just one day later.

Pray: Praise the Lord for his victory. Pray for the directors at PWC that they too will condemn the ‘bigot’ award.  Pray for the Lord to expose the bullying Stonewall group and for their support to fall away.

* Please sign our online petition condemning Stonewall’s ‘Bigot of the Year’ award.

Earlier posts:

27th October 2012: PWC, Coutts and Barclays in Stonewall ‘bigot’ witness

3rd October 2012: Banks support Stonewall ‘Bigot’ dinner (2012)

21st July 2012: ‘Sorry’ is the hardest word for Nationwide

14th July 2012: Nationwide in ‘Bigot’ award challenge

4th November 2011: Stonewall ‘cowards’ call Melanie Phillips ‘Bigot of the Year’ (2011)

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