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Britain has sent it’s strongest message to date in support of LGBT rights around the world.

Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant, who is openly gay, has started writing personal letters of congratulations to British diplomats overseas who show public support for LGBT rights.

One of those to receive a handwritten letter from Bryant is the British ambassador in Poland, Ric Todd, who was criticised in June 2009 for giving a leaflet on LGBT rights to a Polish campaigner.

In the letter to Todd, Bryant wrote: “I wanted to congratulate you on your flying of the Rainbow flag next to the Union flag last year, and your guide to lesbian gay and bisexual and transgender rights translated in Polish this year.

“I know you had some flak, but frankly more power to your elbow. Britain is not just a tolerant country. We fully respect the rights of everyone, regardless of their sexuality.”

Bryant has also written to the British ambassador in Bulgaria, Stuart Williams, and the British ambassador to Bucharest, Robin Barnett. Both men have openly supported LGBT rights in their countries of residence.

Bryant is also writing to British high commissioners in the Commonwealth to ask them to promote the rights of gay people, even though this will run contrary to the teachings of some local churches and governments.

He has also said he would like to see gay rights addressed at the Commonwealth summit in November in Trinidad, which the Queen and Gordon Brown are due to attend.

Most of the countries of the Caribbean and more than two-thirds of African nations maintain laws criminalising homosexuality. In four African countries consensual homosexual acts are still punishable by death.

Former commonwealth coutry India, however, has recently decriminalised homosexuality.

[via The Guardian]

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