A North Carolina professor who keeps
track of LGBT politicians across the world says the Scottish
Parliament is “the gayest in the world.”
Speaking to The New York Times,
Andrew Reynolds of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
said that “Scotland has the gayest Parliament in the world.”
The Scottish Parliament has 10 members
who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, totaling nearly 8 percent
of the 129-member body.
Additionally, the leaders of three of
Scotland's five major political parties and four ministers in the
Scottish government are openly gay. Also gay is the one elected
representative of the right-wing U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) in
Scotland.
“In the span of a generation,
Scotland has shed much of its traditional social conservatism and
enthusiastically embraced diversity in sexuality, a process led and
reinforced by a remarkable transformation in its political culture,”
the
Times
reported.
“It's a big cultural shift,” said
Kezia Dugdale, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party who came out
in April and recently became engaged to her girlfriend. “When you
say you're gay, people just shrug their shoulders. There is almost a
feeling of 'so what?'”