Welsh couples cannot raise children, says Gay Minister

Spotted by Bob E in The Guardian:

The Minister for Homosexual Affairs, Tarquin Fielding-Jones, has come under fire after claiming in a TV interview that Welsh couples "clearly" could not provide a "warm, dry and safe environment" to raise children.

The Tory MP, who voted in the Commons last week in favour of the government's plans to introduce gay marriage, made his remarks to ITV's Face To Face programme. The shadow Welsh minister, Chris Smith, attacked the comments as evidence that the "nasty party is alive and well under David Cameron".

Fielding-Jones said: "I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm, dry and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that you can't do if it's always raining. Which is not to say that I'm in any sense opposed to stable and committed partnerships in the principality."

Fielding-Jones said he did not believe he was a Little Englander, insisting he had "people in my life who are important to me who once worked for the BBC in Cardiff. And there was that hairdresser from Swansea... oooh... but I digress." The gay minister said he took the chance of a free vote in favour of gay marriage, which he said he believed his constituents were heartily indifferent about.

But Smith said:

"These comments reveal that the nasty party is alive and well under David Cameron. That such views exist in the heart of the Tory cabinet provides yet more evidence of how out of touch the Tories are with modern Britain, and how David Cameron's claim to have changed his party is, like so many of his promises, nothing more than empty words.

"Tarquin's comments are profoundly offensive and he should apologise to every Welshman and woman immediately."