A call on Government to rethink making gay sex legal was a "dirty tactic'' to exploit Christian Progressive Labour Party supporters, it was claimed yesterday.

And if Opposition Senator Patricia Gordon-Pamplin wanted the legalisation quashed she would have to introduce her own Private Member's Bill making gay sex an offence for both men and women, a Government Senator said yesterday.

In Wednesday's Senate meeting, Sen. Gordon-Pamplin called on the Government to clarify its position on John Stubbs' Private Member's Bill which took laws making male homosexual sex an offence off the statute books in 1994.

She said some recent comments by high-profile PLP supporters had raised her hopes that the Government was about to scrap the bill and reintroduce laws making the act punishable with a prison sentence.

Outside the Senate she said she would welcome this stance for Bermuda and it was needed to stop the decay of the community's "moral fibre''.

But yesterday PLP Sen. Calvin Smith said he believed the call was a continuation of "dirty tactics'' and "personal attacks'' by the United Bermuda Party during last year's General Election campaign.

Sen. Smith said the UBP used such methods to "exploit a minority among the population that resented and objected the passing of the law''.

"She was acting mischievously to try to stir up trouble for the PLP because she knows that's one spot where we're vulnerable with a section of the community,'' he said.

"If she really wanted a rethink on the John Stubbs' Bill then why didn't she start a campaign for it herself? "But if she does that she'll have to campaign to make homosexual acts for women illegal as well as for men because that was one problem with the law before -- it was discriminatory.'' Sen. Smith said that when the debate over the issue was stirred up back in 1994, he was against legalisation but since then he had realised flaws with the old law.

"Besides the discrimination factor, another problem with the old law was the fact that law enforcement officers could come crashing into your house to check out what was happening in the bedroom.

"I respect people's rights too much to approve of that sort of thing. I would be very surprised if we did rethink it.'' Legislative Affairs' Minister Lois Browne-Evans also dismissed Sen.

Gordon-Pamplin's wish for clarification of where the Government stood and her call for the law to be revisited.

Mrs. Browne-Evans said if the Senator was serious about the issue she would start a campaign to get the ball rolling and have Opposition Leader Pamela Gordon introduce a Private Member's Bill.

She said: "People in the Senate, and in the House of Assembly too, sometimes just talk to hear their own voices.

"Senator Gordon-Pamplin knows how the political process works so if she wants this she should do it herself.'' And the matter was a "dead issue'' which was not in the PLP's manifesto and would not be revisited, she said.