LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM —Queen Elizabeth II addressed both houses of Parliament last week to celebrate 60 years on the British throne. In an address scheduled to mark the sovereign’s diamond jubilee, Speaker of the House of Commons John Brecow raised a few eyebrows when he introduced the 85-year-old monarch as “a kaleidoscope queen of a kaleidoscope country.”
Bercow, 49, is straight and married, but serves as the honorary president of the Kaleidoscope International Diversity Trust, a gay rights group which works to overturn anti-gay legislation across the world and to open dialogues between straight government officials and gay citizens in less tolerant countries.
Telegraph columnist and blogger Damian Thompson suggested that Bercow’s comment was “a thinly disguised plug for gay marriage.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who supports marriage equality, was clearly not amused by Bercow’s remarks, as his expression showed when it was captured on television just moments after the Speaker of Commons’ “kaleidoscopic” comments.
Elizabeth II ascended the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1952. “I am reassured that I am merely the second sovereign to celebrate a diamond jubilee,” the queen told officials. Only one other British monarch, Victoria, celebrated 60 years on the throne, in 1897 (she died in 1901).