The ParliOut initiative was established with the help of the gay rights charity Stonewall. Conservative MP Nigel Evans, who declared his homosexuality at the weekend, will become its vice-president.
Mr Evans, a deputy speaker in the Commons, said he hoped his decision to publicly declare his sexual orientation would help others.
He said a Labour MP had threatened to “out” him. The MP for Ribble Valley would not name the MP but said he wanted to help end such “nastiness”.
It comes as Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative hopeful who last week narrowly failed in her bid to stand for Glasgow Kelvin in May’s Scottish Parliamentary elections, tells The Herald that being gay is no hurdle to success in politics north of the Border.
In a frank exclusive interview published today, Ms Davidson, 32, the only openly gay Scottish Tory candidate, speaks of her love for partner Saskia Halcrow and the support she has from party leader Annabel Goldie, for whom she works as a personal assistant.
Ms Davidson, a former BBC Scotland news presenter who joined the Conservative Party two years ago, insists her sexuality was not the reason she was voted second on the Glasgow regional list after Malcolm MacAskill – effectively giving her only a remote chance of being elected as an MSP in May. She also stood in the fiercely contested Glasgow North-East by-election last year.
“I’ve never encountered any impediment within the party for being gay,” she says. “There’s a misconception that the Scottish Tories are anti-gay. It’s a stick we get beaten with and it’s unfair.
“A lot of the people surrounding John Major, Iain Duncan Smith and William Hague are gay, so it exists at the very highest levels. In fact, the Tories have more gay MPs than Labour or the LibDems put together.”