A Cumbrian LGBT group has joined the opposition to the LGB Alliance (LGBA) being granted charity status by the Charity Commission of England and Wales.

The Commission granted charity status to the LGBA on February 20 after it had applied to register the previous month.

Cumbria Pride, along with other pride groups have claimed that the LGBA does not meet all of the commissions requirements.

Cumbria Pride Chair, Jane-Ann Clark said: “Whilst we understand the charity commission can’t make a decision about who has the right to campaign, and we do agree that lesbians, gays and bisexuals should be recognised, and that sexuality is very different to gender.

“The charity commission state that a charity can promote the rights of one or more specific groups, but may not do so whilst demeaning or denigrating the rights of others, including on social media - which unfortunately as many of our community have seen and experienced is something the LGB Alliance do.”

The Charity Commission have defended their decision, saying the purposes of the LGBA are “to promote equality and diversity and human rights.”

In a breakdown of their full decision, the Charity Commission added: “The Commission accepted that LGB Alliance is established for exclusively charitable purposes, in accordance with the legal framework and based on the evidence received.”

Being registered as a charity means the LGBA must be established under and in accordance with the law of England and Wales and it must be subject to the control of the High Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction with respect to charities.

In response to Cumbria Pride’s comment, Bev Jackson of the LGBA said: “We apologise for not having the time to deal with all the accusations made by various organisations such as Cumbria Pride.

“We are very busy trying our best to serve the needs of LGB people.

“The need for a charity that protects same-sex sexual orientation is immediately apparent from the fact that the UK Pride Organisers Network Statement on the Charity Commission’s decision to award LGB Alliance charity status places “same-sex” rights in quotation marks.

“It is a sad state of affairs that organisations once set up to protect same-sex sexual orientation now consider our rights spurious. All LGBTQ+ groups now focus on gender identity. This created a vacuum which we are setting out to fill.

“We do not seek to denigrate anyone, but we proudly defend our right, as people whose sexual orientation is towards the same sex (or in the case of bisexuals to both sexes), to describe ourselves in that way and to reject the notion of gender identity as being unrelated to our sexual orientation.”