Peter Tatchell to speak with former Bishop of Edinburgh tonight

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Peter Tatchell will appear in conversation with Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh, tonight.

Holloway has supported Tatchell in the past, even defending him against a charge of “indecent behaviour in church”, when Tatchell appeared in court after storming the pulpit during the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Easter sermon in 1998.

Tonight’s event, at 7pm in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, will look back at Tatchell’s career and unorthodox methods, which include the ambush of the Archbishop of Canterbury and performing a citizen’s arrest on Zimbabwe’s leader Robert Mugabe.

In a press release issued today, Tatchell said he hoped to raise a number of issues with the former Archbishop, such as the the ban on gay marriage, visas for homophobic musicians and the ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood.

He also said he would question the Equality Bill, which a number of gay groups have criticised for not including gay people in the protections against harassment.

Holloway resigned from his post as Archbishop and as Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church in 2000.

Since then, he has campaigned for liberal causes, including gay rights, and is a patron of LGBT Youth Scotland.

When defending Tatchell over the indecency in church charge, he wrote: “Peter Tatchell’s tactics do not attract much sympathy from the general public and I do not always approve of them myself.”

“But they have a certain historic precedent. History shows us that reform movements always gain their energy from the extreme actions of a few individuals who feel they have been abused by the system against which they are protesting.”

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