UK Prime Minister 'Sorry' for Anti-Gay Legislative Past, Wants to Be an 'Ally'

Even as Britain's Prime Minister, Theresa May, struggles to reconcile differing factions with respect to the UK's exit from the European Union, she spoke out during a Pride Reception on July 3 against her own anti-LGBTQ legislative record before London's Pride celebrations, reported Gay Times.

In 2002 May voted against the repeal of a particularly vicious piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation from the 1980s known as Section 28, which categorized committed same-sex couples as "pretended family relationships" and, in effect, amounted to an early form of today's infamous "no homo promo" laws, such as those enacted in Russia in 2013, barring any positive depiction of gays by government agencies or in schools.

Saying that her outlook about gays had "developed," May told the media, "There's some things I've voted for in the past that I shouldn't have done and I've said sorry," British television company ITV reported.

May also said that although she is a Christian herself, she never used prayer in a bid to try to turn anyone straight, and also said that she finds attempts to "convert" gays into heterosexuals through the discredited practice of "conversion therapy" to be "abhorrent" and "shocking."

May's comments were made in the wake of a government promise to implement an "Action Plan" designed to bolster access and equality for Britain's sexual minorities, Gay Times noted.

May's July 3 remarks referenced a range ways in which LGBTQs in Britain have progressed toward full legal parity in recent years, "from introducing equal marriage to changing the law so that people who were unjustly convicted of things that should never have been a crime can receive the pardon they deserve."

May's comments were, in part directed to longtime equality advocate Peter Tatchell, who was in attendance. May directly referenced Tatchell's recent activism Russia, where he was briefly detained by authorities there.

"And I am proud to be Prime Minister of a country that, thanks to your hard work over many years, is consistently ranked among the most :GBT-firendly anywhere in the world," May's speech continued.

May's July 3 remarks ahead of London's Pride celebrations were not the first time the prime minister has voiced regret for the wrongs of the past, as well as LGBTQ-supportive sentiments. In an April address to leaders from across the Commonwealth of Nations, May openly regretted Britain's colonial-era penal code policies, which imported anti-gay hate and persecution to a number of colonized nations, UK newspaper The Guardian reported at the time.

"I am all too aware that these laws were often put in place by my own country. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now," May told leaders from 53 Commonwealth nations. "As the UK's prime minister, I deeply regret both the fact that such laws were introduced, and the legacy of discrimination, violence and even death that persists today."