Ken Livingstone is not homophobic. His use of the word riddled has to be judged in context. It was clearly not used with any homophobic intent. All parties have lots of gay and bisexual MPs, as Ken noted. He is right to state that there were many gay MPs in the Tory party, from the backbenches to the cabinet.

After Labour’s election victory in 1997 many gay Labour MPs came out, while gay Tories remained in the closet and continued to vote against gay equality. Ken was making a simple statement of fact,” added Mr Tatchell.

Ken is correct to suggest that in the 1980s and 90s the Conservative Party was avowedly anti-gay, while having many gay MPs. Lots of Tories opposed gay equality, despite their own homosexuality. They were hypocrites and homophobes. Ken is right to point this out.

In recent years, the Conservative leadership has embraced gay equality, which is commendable. However, only two weeks ago it was reported that 100 Tory MPs intend to block David Cameron’s plan to end the ban on same-sex marriage. They still oppose gay equality.

Ken was very wrong to invite the sexist, homophobic cleric, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to City Hall in 2004 but he should be judged on his overall record, which on gay rights is exceptionally good.

In the early 1980s, as leader of the Greater London Council, he pioneered gay rights policies that most MPs opposed at the time. It took many of them another 20 years to embrace gay equality. Ken supported the lesbian and gay community at a time when most other politicians did not. He deserves great credit.

Their appeal argues that Britain’s twin legal bans on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships amount to illegal discrimination, contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. The bans violate Articles 8, 12 and 14 – respectively the right to privacy and family life, the right to marry and the right to non-discrimination.

The 31-page application, drafted by Robert Wintemute, Professor of Human Rights Law at King’s College London, presents a compelling case. Since there are no significant differences in the rights and responsibilities involved in civil marriages and civil partnerships, there can be no justification for the segregation of gay and straight couples into two mutually exclusive legal systems. It is discrimination based on sexual orientation. For this reason, we are hopeful that when the ECHR eventually delivers a judgement, probably in 2014, it will be in favour of equality.

Soon after the ECHR appeal was filed, the government announced its intention to consult on the issue of same-sex marriage. Mere coincidence? Perhaps. But the government was surely mindful that it will be required to explain to the ECHR its rationale for excluding gay couples from civil marriages and heterosexual couples from civil partnerships. It can now report to the ECHR that it is consulting. This consultation is, however, flawed. It is limited to same-sex marriage.

David Cameron mistakenly calculated that we’ll be satisfied with marriage equality. We won’t. So long as heterosexual couples remain banned from civil partnerships, which is the Prime Minister’s apparent intention, the Equal Love campaign will continue. We believe in straight equality just as passionately as we care about equal rights for lesbians and gay men.

In our estimation, there is a sizeable minority of heterosexual couples who would prefer a civil partnership. They dislike the patriarchal history and language of marriage; viewing civil partnerships as a more modern, egalitarian alternative. In the Netherlands, where civil partnerships are open to both gay and heterosexual couples, two-thirds of civil partners are straight men and women. We could expect a similar take-up by heterosexual couples in Britain, if civil partnerships were open to everyone.

Cameron also miscalculated by ruling out any legalisation of religious same-sex marriages, even by faith organisations, such as the Quakers and Unitarians, who want to conduct them. This is an attack on religious freedom, as well as perpetrating homophobic discrimination. Moreover, given that the government has recently authorised religious same-sex civil partnerships, a continued blanket ban on religious same-sex marriages looks inconsistent and petty.

For all these reasons, the Equal Love campaign is building momentum. The right of gay couples to marry is backed by David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, Boris Johnson and a growing number of Tory MPs, including Chloe Smith, Mike Weatherley and Margot James.

In 2010, the Green Party national conference was the first to vote to end the twin bans on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships. It was followed by the Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru conferences. Oddly, the Labour conference has declined to vote on the issue; although the GMB, Unison and all 13 Labour MEPs want the twin bans overturned.

The SNP government in Scotland is leading the way, with its public consultation period already concluded; while David Cameron inexplicably postponed the start of his consultation from last summer to next month.

Some people argue: what’s there to consult about? Homophobic discrimination is wrong and should therefore be abolished pronto. Would the government have a long drawn out consultation about repealing racist laws? I doubt it. It would immediately abolish them on the grounds that they were incompatible with a democratic society. Why should homophobic bans be treated any differently?

The public is on our side. A Populus poll in 2009 found that 61% of the public believe: “Gay couples should have an equal right to get married, not just to have civil partnerships.” Only 33% disagreed. It’s likely that there is similar support for heterosexual civil partnerships.

What’s the government waiting for? The time for equality is now.

This article first appeared in the Guardian. 

Dr Sentamu, who born in Uganda and fled Idi Amin’s dictatorship, has condemned the government over its plans to legalise same-sex civil marriage; insinuating that the Prime Minister is behaving in a dictatorial manner.

It is, however, Dr Sentamu who seeks to dictate. He wants to impose his personal opposition to gay marriage on a society that overwhelmingly rejects his demand for homophobic discrimination.

The Archbishop is unelected and owes his post to patronage, whereas the government has been elected democratically by millions of voters. Moreover, a clear majority of the British people, including many Christians, support same-sex civil marriages. A Populus poll, published in The Times newspaper in June 2009, found that 61% of the public believe that: “Gay couples should have an equal right to get married, not just to have civil partnerships.” Only 33% disagreed.

Dr Sentamu rejects the enlightened, progressive public will, in favour of his preferred imposition of homophobic discrimination in law. He is, in essence, a religious authoritarian who opposes equality.

I am no theologian or expert in ecclesiastical matters, but from my understanding of scripture it is not a loving Christian value to demand discrimination against other human beings. To insist that the law discriminate against gay couples and treat them as inferior, second class citizens strikes me as devoid of the love and compassion that is attributed to Jesus Christ in the gospels.

The Archbishop’s insulting, disparaging attitude towards lesbian and gay couples is evidenced by the way he dismisses loving, committed, loyal same-sex civil partnerships as mere “friendships”.

He would never describe heterosexual couples in love, whether they were married or unmarried, as mere friends.

Right from the outset of the debate about marriage equality, Dr Sentamu seems to have got the wrong end of the stick. The government is proposing to legalise same-sex marriages in register offices only. This will not affect churches or other places of worship. The Archbishop has no valid grounds for objecting to civil registrations that will ensure marriage equality for all couples. It does not impact on his religious domain.

Dr Sentamu comes across as intolerant and out of touch. His stance colludes with homophobia. It brings shame and dishonour to the Church of England. Even many Anglicans are likely to be repulsed by his advocacy of anti-gay discrimination. They, and most non-religious people, will see his stance as further evidence of the bigotry that burns in hearts of many so-called Christian leaders.

The Archbishop’s justification that it is vital to demand the preservation of the tradition and history of exclusively heterosexual marriage is very similar to the arguments that were in the past used by the church to justify slavery, colonialism and the denial of votes to women. Appealing to past injustices to preserve current injustices cuts no ice with most people.

Archbishop Sentamu has long been accused of collusion with homophobia. When the Anti-Homosexuality “kill the gays” Bill was first introduced in the Ugandan parliament, Sentamu took ages to respond, despite the fact that he is from Uganda and was being urged to speak out against the proposed death penalty for repeat homosexual offenders. He did eventually condemn the death sentence provision, but not the Bill itself or its other draconian clauses.

A decade ago, Dr Sentamu was involved in the perceived cover up of the homophobic abuse and assaults on Damilola Taylor, which occurred shortly before the young boy was murdered in November 2000. These attacks, and the possibility of a homophobic motive, were not even mentioned in Sentamu’s 2002 report into the killing.

The Archbishop clearly has form.

Regardless of his hostility to marriage equality, the Equal Love campaign is confident that Britain will eventually overturn the twin legal bans on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships. We’ve already succeeded in helping persuade the government to commit to the legalisation of gay civil marriages before the next election in 2015; although David Cameron is sadly, and very oddly, insisting that the ban on heterosexual civil partnerships must remain.

To ensure that we overturn both discriminations, Equal Love currently has an appeal against the twin bans under consideration by the European Court of Human Rights (PDF).

We argue that banning same-sex couples from civil marriages and opposite-sex couples from civil partnerships is illegal discrimination, contrary to Articles 8, 12 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Owing to the backlog of cases, it may take another three years to get a judgement. But we are quietly confident that we can win equality for all, despite Archbishop Sentamu’s demand for continued discrimination.

* For more information about Peter Tatchell’s human rights campaigns and to make a donation: www.petertatchell.net.

This article first appeared on the Huffington Post UK.

It is time Section 5 was repealed, to allow freedom of expression without the threat of arrest.

The opportunity for reform exists. The current Protection of Freedoms Bill could easily be amended.

Some MPs and Lords want to amend it. Alas, the Con-Dem government is hesitating, despite its professed commitment to restore many of civil liberties that were whittled away during the Blair-Brown era.

Section 5 Public Order Act 1986 states:

Harassment, alarm or distress.

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he —

(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,

within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.

This legislation is sweeping, draconian and has a chilling effect.

There is no requirement to prove that the person intended any of the aforementioned likely consequences. They can be convicted under Section 5, regardless of their intention. Thus innocently intended words, behaviours or signs can result in a criminal record.

The first part of Section 5 is about criminalising disorderly behaviour, and words, behaviour or images that are threatening. Threats and disorderly behaviour are unacceptable. Criminalising them is therefore not unreasonable.

It is less clear that mere abuse warrants criminalisation. What constitutes abuse? Calling someone a “bloody fool” or a “drunken bastard” is abusive but should it be a crime? Different people have different interpretations regarding what level and forms of abuse should be lawful or unlawful. It’s a subjective judgement.

Likewise with insults. When does an insult cease to be a legitimate (if bad mannered) expression of opinion and become a matter for arrest and prosecution? Much satirical comedy and many polemical critiques of religion may be deemed insults by some people.

The second part of Section 5 is equally worrying. A crime is committed if a person is “likely” to be caused “harassment, alarm or distress”. There is no requirement to prove that anyone actually has been harassed, alarmed or distressed. The mere likelihood is sufficient to secure a conviction.

In particular, the criminalisation of harassment in Section 5 is superfluous. Safeguards against harassment exist in other legislation, notably the Protection From Harassment Act 1997.

What constitutes alarm and distress in Section 5 is a further subjective judgment, open to widely different interpretations. For some ultra-sensitive people, what others regard as valid criticisms may cause them distress. Provocative challenges to their beliefs can provoke alarm.

Indeed, any controversial or dissenting viewpoint has the potential to upset someone and result in them complaining that they felt insulted, alarmed or distressed. Liberal Muslims offend traditionalists, gay pride marches alarm homophobes, mixed race couples distress racists and gender equality is an affront to sexist men. You see my point?

Section 4A of the Public Order Act is sufficient to cover any exceptional circumstances requiring prosecution (although its criminalisation of mere insults should also be repealed for the afore-mentioned reasons). Moreover, 4A has the added safeguard that the person must have acted with intent.

If we accept that abuse or insults resulting in likely alarm or distress should be a crime, we risk limiting free and open debate and criminalising dissenting opinions and alternative lifestyles that some very conservative people may find offensive and upsetting. The right to mock, ridicule and satirise ideas, opinions, people and institutions is put in jeopardy. Section 5 can, in theory, be used to criminalise almost any words, actions or images, if someone (anyone) is likely to be alarmed or distressed by them.

To give some examples:

Campaigns against religious homophobia have sometimes resulted in lesbian and gay activists being arrested for causing insult or distress to homophobes and their religious supporters.

This is what happened to myself and other members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) human rights group OutRage! when we protested against 6,000 supporters of the Islamist fundamentalist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, outside their mass rally at Wembley Arena in 1994.

They called for the killing of gays, apostates, Jews and unchaste women. They were not arrested but we were. Our crime? We shouted slogans and displayed placards that factually condemned Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters for inciting murder and also denounced the persecution of LGBT people by Islamist governments, such as the Iranian regime. Our placards were deemed insulting and likely to cause distress.

Section 5 has been also used unjustly against Christian street preachers who have merely condemned homosexuality, without being aggressive or threatening. What they said was homophobic and should be challenged but they should not be criminalised.

Dale McAlpine was arrested in Workington in 2010, after condemning homosexuality as a sin. He was charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, contrary to Section 5.

The same law was also used to stifle the views of Muslims who condemned British soldiers in Iraq as “terrorists” and as the “butchers of Basra”.

In 2008, a teenager was charged under Section 5 for holding a sign outside Scientology’s London headquarters calling the movement a “cult”.

Two years earlier, an Oxford student was arrested for jokingly suggesting that a police horse was “gay”.

In both cases, even though the charges were later dropped, the protesters had their freedom of expression infringed and they suffered public humiliation by the police.

The civil rights watchdogs, Liberty and Justice, want Section 5 either repealed or radically reformed.

Freedom of expression is one of the most important of all liberties and human rights. It should be only restricted in extreme and very limited circumstances. The open exchange of ideas – including unpalatable, even offensive, ideas – is a hallmark of a free and democratic society.

There is no right to be not distressed or offended. Some of the most important ideas in history – such as those of Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin – caused great offence and distress in their time.

While bigoted opinions should always be challenged, in most instances only explicit incitements to violence and damaging libels, such as false allegations of tax fraud or child abuse, should be criminalised.

Causing insult or distress is far too low a threshold for criminalisation. It can inhibit the right to protest and free speech. There is no place for Section 5 in a democratic society.

A Select Committee should be charged to examine Section 5 and all public order laws, with a view to proposing reforms that strike a better balance between protecting the public and safeguarding freedom of expression, as Lord Avebury has proposed.

Peter Tatchell is Director of the human rights lobby, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

This article first appeared in the Huffington Post.

There are, of course, frightening examples of intensified homophobic repression in parts of Africa and the Middle East. But taking the long view, in world historical terms, anti-gay attitudes and laws are on the wane.

This begs the question:

As homophobia diminishes and as future societies eventually embrace a post-homophobic culture, how will this transition to equality, dignity, understanding and acceptance affect the expression of sexuality?

If human civilisation evolves into a state of sexual enlightenment, where the differences between hetero and homo no longer matter, what would this mean for the future of same-sex desire and same-sex identity?

We already know, thanks to a host of sex surveys, that bisexuality is a fact of life and that even in narrow-minded, homophobic cultures, many people have a sexuality that is, to varying degrees, capable of both heterosexual and homosexual attraction.

It is also apparent that same-sex relations flourish, albeit often temporarily, in single-sex institutions like schools, prisons and the armed forces – which suggests that sexuality might be more flexible than many people assume.

Research by Dr Alfred Kinsey in the USA during the 1940s was the first major statistical evidence that gay and straight are not watertight, irreconcilable and mutually exclusive sexual orientations. He found that human sexuality is, in fact, a continuum of desires and behaviours, ranging from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. A substantial proportion of the population shares an amalgam of same-sex and opposite-sex feelings – even if they do not act on them.

In Sexual Behaviour In The Human Male (1948), Kinsey recorded that 13% of the men he surveyed were either mostly or exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. Twenty-five per cent had more than incidental gay reactions or experience, amounting to clear and continuing same-sex desires. Altogether, 37% of the men Kinsey questioned had experienced sex with other males to the point of orgasm, and half had experienced mental attraction or erotic arousal towards other men (often transient and not physically expressed).

Kinsey’s statistics on same-sex behaviour have since been criticised as out-of-date, exaggerated and unrepresentative. However, his idea of a spectrum of human sexuality has tended to be reinforced by subsequent surveys which have shown that a significant proportion of the population have had sexual relations with both men and women.

A British sex survey, conducted by ICM for The Observer newspaper in 2008, found that 16% of women reported sexual contact with a woman, and 10% of men said they’d had sexual contact with another man. The survey revealed a trend to greater sexual experimentation, with 23% of 16 to 24 year olds indicating that they had a same-sex experience. All these figures are much higher than the number of people who are exclusively gay or lesbian and who define themselves as such.

The possibility that individuals can share a capacity for both hetero and homo behaviour is an idea that was researched and documented by the anthropologists Clellan Ford and Frank Beach.

In Patterns of Sexual Behaviour (1965), they noted that certain forms of homosexuality were considered normal and acceptable in 49 (nearly two-thirds) of 76 tribal societies surveyed from the 1920s to the 1950s. They also recorded that in some aboriginal cultures, such as the Keraki and Sambia peoples of Papua New Guinea, all young men entered into a same-sex relationship with an unmarried male warrior, sometimes lasting several years, as part of their rites of passage to manhood. Once completed, they ceased all homosexual contact and assumed sexual desires for women. If sexual orientation was totally biologically pre-programmed at birth, these men would have never been able to switch to homosexuality and then to heterosexuality with such apparent ease.

This led Ford and Beach to deduce that homosexuality is fundamental to the human species, and that its practice is substantially influenced by social mores and cultural expectations.

The evidence from these two research disciplines – sociology and anthropology – is that the incidence and form of heterosexuality and homosexuality is not fixed and universal, and that the two sexual orientations are not mutually exclusive. There is a good deal of fluidity and overlap.

What’s more, although scientific evidence shows that human sexuality is significantly affected by biological predispositions – such as genes and hormones – other influences appear to be cultural, including social expectations, peer pressure and the availability and opportunity for sexual release. These influences channel erotic impulses in certain directions and not others. An individual’s sexual orientation is thus influenced culturally, as well as biologically.

As culture changes, perhaps manifestations of sexuality can also change?

The evidence of considerable cross-over between gay and straight relations comes from research that records consciously recognised and admitted desires. At the level of unconscious feelings – where passions are often repressed, displaced, sublimated, projected and transferred – it seems probable that very few people are 100 percent straight or gay. Most are a mixture, even if they never mentally acknowledge or physically express both sides of the sexual equation.

This picture of human sexuality is much more complex, diverse and blurred than the traditional simplistic binary image of hetero and homo, so loved by straight moralists and – equally significantly – by many lesbians and gay men.

If sexual orientation has a culturally-influenced element of indeterminacy and flexibility, then the present forms of homosexuality and heterosexuality are conditional. They are unlikely to remain the same in perpetuity. As culture changes, so will expressions of sexuality.

In a future non-homophobic society, as the taboos concerning same-sex relations recede, more people are likely to have gay sex – even if only experimentally or for a few years.

Interestingly, the demise of homophobia is likely to make redundant the need to assert and affirm gayness.

Gay and lesbian identities are largely the product of homophobic prejudice and repression. They are a self-defence mechanism against homophobia. Faced with persecution for having same-sex relations, the right to have those relationships has to be defended – hence gay identity and the gay rights movement.

But if one sexuality is not privileged over another, defining oneself as gay (or straight) will cease to be necessary and have no social relevance or significance. The need to maintain sexual differences, boundaries and identities disappears with the demise of straight supremacism.

As we evolve into a sexually enlightened and accepting society, homosexuality and heterosexuality will begin to fade as separate, exclusive orientations and identities.

The vast majority of people will be open to the possibility of both opposite-sex and same-sex desires, regardless of whether they act upon them. They won’t feel the need to label themselves (or others) as gay or straight because, in a future non-homophobic civilisation, no one will care who loves who. Love will transcend sexual orientation.

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post UK.

For more information about Peter Tatchell’s human rights and social justice campaigns, visit www.petertatchell.net 

Sadly, the Lib Dem equality minister, Lynne Featherstone, apparently with the support of the Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, is now actively backing discrimination. She plans to keep unequal laws, contrary to the Lib Dem’s election pledges.

Specifically, Lynne is vowing to retain the prohibition on heterosexual civil partnerships and on religious same-sex marriages by faith organisations that want to conduct them. This is in direct defiance of what her party members voted for: equality.

Nick Clegg has not dissented from her stance. We can only assume that he endorses it.

Lynne is lovely. I like her as a person. However, she has announced a long and unjustified delay in the government’s promised consultation on civil marriage and civil partnership; pre-empting the consultation findings by ruling out straight and religious equality.

She said at the start of this year that the consultation would begin in June. Then she postponed it until October. Now it has been put off until March next year. Why can’t the consultation start now? Despite all our requests, Lynne has failed to explain why this delay is necessary.

I am not persuaded that there needs to be any consultation at all. The ban on same-sex marriage is homophobic discrimination and should therefore be repealed immediately.

If black or Jewish people had been banned from marriage, the government would act swiftly to ensure marriage equality. There would be no long drawn out consultation period. There would be no appeasement of racists and anti-Semites. Why the double standards?

No other government legislation is being subjected to such prolonged consultation and repeated postponements.

The Scottish government has not hesitated. Its consultation on marriage and partnership equality is already underway. Why is the UK Equality Minister dragging her feet and delaying her consultation until next spring? It doesn’t make sense.

The Westminster government has promised to legislate marriage equality before the date of the next election, due by May 2015 at the latest. However, the delayed consultation could result in the measure not completing its parliamentary progress in time. Likely resistance by the House of Lords might result in its being timed out. Is this deliberate?

Ending sexual orientation discrimination in marriage law is not only the right thing to do, it has majority public support. There is, therefore, no reason for the government to delay in bringing forward legislation to end this legal iniquity.

Nearly two-thirds of the public support marriage equality. According to a 2009 Populous opinion poll, 61% of the public say that lesbian and gay couples should be allowed by law to get married:

Lynne Featherstone’s gay marriage consultation announcement looks like an attempt to head off the Equal Love legal case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

In February, four gay couples and four heterosexual couples filed an application in the ECHR to overturn sexual orientation discrimination in civil marriage and civil partnership law.

Speaking as the appeal coordinator, I can say we are quietly confident that we will win the case – eventually (an ECHR ruling can take four years).

The current UK ban on straight couples having a civil partnership is clear discrimination. Lynne’s commitment to maintain this inequality is both surprising and shocking. It is wrong for her to exclude in advance any discussion about opening up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples.

I stand for equality and this includes equality for straight people too. It would be wrong for the LGBT community to demand equal rights for ourselves and then ignore or accept the denial of equality to heterosexual people. In a democracy we should all be equal before the law.

There are many heterosexuals who would like a civil partnership. To deny them this option is very unfair – and it is illegal under human rights law. How can a Lib Dem Equality Minister support inequality?

The Netherlands has an equivalent to civil partnerships. Called registered partnerships, they are open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The vast majority of Dutch civil partnerships are heterosexual ones. They are hugely popular and would be equally popular in the UK, if the government allowed straight couples to have them. To deny British heterosexuals the option of a civil partnership is profoundly wrong and unjust.

This is bad enough. However, Lynne has also ruled that her consultation will not consider the option of ending the ban on religious marriages for lesbian and gay couples, even though some faith organisations – such as the Quakers, Unitarians and Liberal Jews – have requested that they should be allowed to marry same-sex partners. Lynne says no. She says the ban must stay. This is a violation of religious freedom. While no religious body should be forced to perform same-sex marriages, those that support gay marriage should not be barred by law from doing so.

I appeal to Lynne – and Nick Clegg – to rethink this ill-considered consultation timetable and its pro-discrimination parameters – to both ensure non-discrimination and to avoid an embarrassing defeat in the European Court of Human Rights.

It is outrageous that the Equality Minister wants to maintain the unequal, discriminatory laws that bar gay religious marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships. Her stance is not compatible with her professed Liberal Democrat values or with the wishes of the vast majority of Lib Dem party members.

This article was first published on Lib Dem Voice.

Former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris defended Lynne Featherstone in a separate article.

The government’s HIV strategy is flawed and failing.

London HIV clinics are under pressure to prescribe cheaper HIV drugs, which may not be as effective and may have more severe side effects. This could put at risk the health of some people with HIV. It is evidence of the potentially damaging consequences of public spending cuts and pressure on NHS finances.

The closure or merger of some local and regional HIV services means that many people with HIV now have to travel longer distances to access good quality care and support. The time and cost involved can act as a disincentive to engagement with HIV services.

HIV education is woefully inadequate in most schools. Teaching pupils how to roll a condom on a banana is not good enough.

Very few students learn how to negotiate safer sex and what to do if a partner refuses to wear a condom. There is no popularisation of less risky alternatives to intercourse, such as oral sex, body rubbing and mutual masturbation. These alternatives should be explained in all secondary schools.

What safer sex information is taught in schools is wholly oriented to heterosexual pupils. Gay and bisexual students get no specific advice on how to have gay sex safely.

Many faith schools and independent schools are getting away with neglecting their pupil’s HIV education. They put their own dogmas and embarrassment about sexual matters before the health and welfare of young people.

Frank, detailed and effective HIV awareness and prevention education should be mandatory in all schools from primary level onwards, before pupils become sexually active and adopt unsafe sexual habits.

The needs of gay and bisexual men continue to be under-resourced. HIV prevention campaigns targeted at men who have sex with men are not working, as evidenced by the high number of new HIV infections.

Having won so many gains in terms of legal rights and social acceptance, we need to ensure that we remain healthy to enjoy the benefits of equality. We may have to rethink some HIV prevention advertising campaigns to make them more hard-hitting and impactive. The level of new infections in our community needs to be cut very significantly.

Access to effective HIV prevention information and to high quality HIV health-care are human rights. They should be available to all.

During the era of British imperial conquest, our government inflicted homophobic persecution on the LGBT peoples of Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean. Before colonialism, none of these countries had laws against same-sex relations. Many pre-colonial societies accepted or tolerated same-sex relations.

It would be a welcome gesture of contrition and moral leadership for our Prime Minister to acknowledge the terrible wrong that Britain did – and to seek to atone for it.

I don’t want David Cameron to grovel. But his commitment to global LGBT human rights would carry greater credibility if he apologised for Britain’s past wrong in foisting anti-gay laws on other countries.

Without an apology, the UK’s call for the decriminalisation of homosexuality throughout the world will lack credibility. With an apology, the appeal for decriminalisation will have greater impact and authority.

An apology would be a gesture of reconciliation and put current homophobic states on the spot.

At present, more than 40 countries that were former British colonies have retained the anti-gay laws that Britain imposed on them in the nineteenth century, with penalties ranging up to life imprisonment for homosexuality in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Pakistan, Uganda, Bangladesh and Guyana.

These 40-plus nations account for more than half of the world’s countries that still criminalise same-sex relations. They penalise millions of LGBT people.

Several of these states have conducted homophobic witch-hunts in recent years, with arrests or threatened mass round ups in The Gambia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Ghana.

Saying sorry is a small but important gesture, which would be to Britain’s credit. It would enhance our human rights reputation and wrong-foot those nations who dismiss LGBT rights as a western imposition. The real western export to the developing world was homophobia, not homosexuality.

Over to you, David Cameron.

Axel Axgil led a life very well lived, for five decades with his partner, Eigil Axgil. Together, in 1989, they became the first same-sex couple in the world to receive marriage-like legal recognition and rights under a national law – Denmark’s trail-blazing registered partnership law.

A true LGBT pioneer, Axel co-founded the Danish LGBT movement in 1948 and the International Homosexual World Organisation in 1954. He remained an active campaigner until his late 80s. He was a modest, warm-hearted, generous, intelligent and pioneering humanitarian.

There is one aspect of Axel’s many extraordinary achievements that is little known.

With the particular help of Hans Christian Thaysen, and also Axel’s support, I was able to campaign from 1994-2000 to posthumously publicly unmask the Danish Nazi war criminal, SS Dr Carl Vaernet, who experimented on gay prisoners in Buchenwald concentration camp and who escaped justice at the end of the Second World War with Allied connivance (possibly because they mostly saw nothing wrong with Vaernet’s bid to ‘cure’ homosexuality).

Vaernet lived openly in Argentina, with the knowledge of successive Danish and Allied governments, until he died in 1965. There was never any attempt to put him on trial with the other Nazi doctors.

Axel was in his late 70s when he contacted me about the Vaernet case, with just a few vague, sketchy details. But he had a very sharp, forensic mind, and gave me some useful suggestions.

As a result of his encouragement, and especially the substantive evidence collated and passed to me by Hans, I did further investigations.

In 1998, I wrote to the then Danish Prime Minister, Poul Rasmussen, to demand full disclosure of Vaernet’s war crimes and the post-war cover-up by the Danish authorities.

These letters led to huge media coverage of the Vaernet case, parliamentary questions and a public outcry in Denmark.

Eventually, this resulted in the release of top secret files on Vaernet, the naming of 31 Danish war criminals (including Vaernet) and exposure of the six decade-long cover-up and collusion by the Danish Justice Ministry (from 1949 to 1999).

In 2004, three Danish journalists published a book on Vaernet and how he was protected, pursuing the evidence that we’d uncovered and expanding it.

I could have never unearthed what I did without Han’s and Axel’s help and encouragement. I thank them.

Axel Axgil deserves great admiration from all LGBT people, Danes and humanitarians. A true hero, I salute him. He will live on through his extraordinary contribution to LGBT human rights. I feel very fortunate to have worked with him.

Rose Robertson grew up in working class Deptford, south London, in the 1920s. It was an era when female children were often less favoured, as it was assumed they would never be a breadwinner. Her father, Arthur Laimbeer, a merchant seaman, was absent for much of her childhood and her mother, Rose (nee Crowley), treated her with an inexplicable lifelong disdain, which may have accounted for her later identification with outsiders and the downcast. Keen to escape her stifling family life, Robertson twice during her teens ran away from home to join troupes of travelling actors.

She eventually settled into a series of secretarial jobs, most notably with a travel agency in Mayfair. The second world war transformed her routine existence and gave an outlet to her long suppressed adventurous, rebellious spirit.

Robertson was always reluctant to speak about her wartime role, partly out of modesty, partly due to trauma and partly because of what she described as a “sort of brainwashing we were subjected to during training, in order that we would not break under Nazi interrogation.” She was referring to her enlistment in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1941. The counter-interrogation training was so severe and successful that for the rest of her life Robertson had great difficulty in talking about her time in SOE. When she was pressed by her family, it provoked extreme mental and physical distress that sometimes lasted for weeks.

According to her account to me, Robertson was parachuted into Nazi-occupied France. She spied on German troop deployments and acted as a courier, liaising between the French Resistance and Allied military HQ in Britain. She was once stopped and quizzed by German soldiers but managed to bluff them. When her network was betrayed, she escaped. But others were captured.

Robertson acted as an informal advisor to the producers of the film Charlotte Gray (2001), about a SOE agent in France. Watching the film bought back painful memories and caused her a temporary breakdown. For many years, she retained her treasured miniature SOE pistol, which she used to hide in her hair to avoid detection during street checks by German troops; only finally surrendering it during a police amnesty in the late 1960s.

I was not able to independently corroborate Robertson’s wartime role because many SOE records were destroyed or lost.

However, given her reticence to talk about her war work and her frequent distress when she did, I am inclined to believe her. Loyalty to the code of silence is typical of SOE women agents. Apart from a few like Nancy Wake and Odette Sansom, most stayed true to their oath of secrecy and never told their stories.

After the war, Robertson returned to hum-drum secretarial work for an industrial clothing factory. She eventually married George Robertson, a retired music hall artist, in 1954, and devoted the next decade to her job and bringing up two sons. Rose and George remained happily married until his death in 1984.

Roberston told me that during her wartime work in France an incident occurred which contributed to her later embrace of the gay rights cause. She was billeted with two young male French Resistance agents. One night she entered their room and found them in an embrace. There was mutual embarrassment all round. Not a word was said for three days. Rose knew nothing about homosexuality and was curious. She eventually plucked up the courage to ask them. Both men told stories of family prejudice and rejection. Their story affected her deeply. She was shocked that parents could be so heartless towards their gay children.

But it wasn’t until 1965 that she decided to do something about it. That year she took in two young male lodgers who she quickly realised were lovers. Hearing that they, too, had suffered because of their parent’s homophobic attitudes, Robertson was eventually prompted to set up Parents Enquiry, Britain’s first helpline to advise and support parents and their lesbian, gay and bisexual children, which she ran from her Catford home in south-east London for three decades.

Robertson was soon flooded with over 100 phone calls and letters a week. These came from distressed gay teens, many of whom had self-harmed because of homophobic prejudice, and from parents who were variously bewildered, distraught, angry, guilty, ashamed and hostile towards their children’s homosexuality. Often she mediated between parents and kids, nearly always successfully. As a middle-aged and thoroughly heterosexual housewife, she was a reassuring figure. Occasionally, she was verbally abused and physically attacked by irate mums and dads. Usually she won them over in the end. She was also targeted by homophobes, with arson attacks on her home, excrement dumped on her doorstep and torrents of abusive phone calls and hate mail.

From the mid 70s onwards, a growing number of referrals came from the police and social services. Authorities who had been wary of supporting gay teenagers, some of whom remained classed as criminals until 2001, were impressed by her family-oriented approach to reconciling gay children with their parents.

Robertson won public support from Marjorie Proops and Claire Rayner, the leading agony aunts of the era. She was a frequent speaker at universities, churches and medical seminars, and was a regular on TV and radio throughout the 1970s and 80s.

During this work, Robertson discovered a natural flair for therapy and soon extended her counselling to all aspects of sexuality and to a wide range of mental and emotional issues. She refused payment, financing her work from her salary and later out of her pension.

Her defiance of convention led Robertson into controversial areas that many established psychotherapists steered clear of, notably psychopathy. She had a track record of moderating the behaviour of psychopathic people, often when orthodox methods had failed.

From her work on psyhcopathy, Robertson came to believe that much irrational behaviour, including some personality disorders and motiveless violence, may stem from emotions absorbed by an embryo before its brain is sufficiently developed. Only a few months ago, she began work on a paper arguing that psychotherapy needed to examine this contentious issue if it was to remain a force for progress.

Robertson continued working until shortly before her death, aged 94. She died peacefully while sleeping.

Her legacy is that she helped thousands of parents and lesbian, gay and bisexual teenagers find understanding, acceptance and reconciliation. Until she began Parents Enquiry, gay children’s parents were unrecognised and unsupported. Robertson highlighted a social need. Her pioneering work was replicated by others and it continues today through the services provided by Friends and Families of Lesbians And Gays (FFLAG) and Parents, Friends (& Family) of Lesbians And Gays (PFLAG).

Robertson is survived by her sons Paul and Chris, her grandchildren Claire, Emma and Matthew and two great-grandchildren.

Rose Ellen Robertson, wartime SOE agent, therapist and counsellor to parents and their gay children, born 28 October 1916, died 10 August 10 2011.

Nikolai’s resignation is sad news and a big loss for the Russian and international LGBT movement. But I understand and respect his decision.

Huge thanks to Nikolai for his amazing, ground-breaking work over many years.

His efforts and those of his Moscow Pride colleagues put the human rights of LGBT Russians in the media and public consciousness worldwide. They ensured that LGBT rights were on the news and political agenda in Russia, to a degree that had never happened before. An extraordinary achievement for a small number of volunteer activists with no funding, apart from their own pockets.

Over the years, Nikolai said and did a few things that were in my opinion mistaken (but haven’t we all made errors?). I disagreed with his decision to collaborate with the right-wing politician Aleksey Mitrofanov in 2007 and I refused to appear at the Moscow Pride news conference where Mitrofanov spoke. With little success, I urged Nikolai to build closer links with other LGBT groups and the mainstream human rights and democratic/left movements in Russia. I disapproved of Nikolai’s remarks which appeared to be anti-Semitic (although I personally doubt that he is prejudiced against Jewish people).

These criticisms do not, however, negate the overall hugely positive contribution that Nikolai has made to the Russian LGBT human rights struggle.

He fearlessly took on the big guns of Russian politics, from the Moscow mayor to the city’s police chief and the Russian president. Bravo!

Nikolai’s activism put him in great personal danger from bashings – even assassination – by ultra nationalists and neo-Nazis. Even his harshest critics cannot deny Nikolai’s immense dedication and courage. Few others would have walked boldly into a crowd of neo-Nazis waiting to ambush Moscow Pride, knowing they may be armed with knives and iron bars.

Not many people would have dared continue to put themselves in the frontline and take on the power of the ruthless tyrannical Russian state, having seen so many human rights defenders beaten, framed on trumped up charges and even murdered. But Nikolai did. Not once but dozens of times.

He was under constant immense mental stress and strain, which caused great difficulties for himself – and to his family and partner. Few others could have endured what Nikolai did. Pushed to the edge of a breakdown, he paid a very heavy personal price, which few people have acknowledged – or seem to care about. This is probably part of the reason for his decision to resign his campaign posts.

If we don’t care about our fellow human rights defenders like Nikolai, what does this say about our ethics and morality?

Nikolai was sometimes subjected to poisonous smears and sectarian attacks by other LGBT activists, which caused him great hurt, as they were mostly without any truth and delivered with the venom you’d expect from the far right, not from fellow LGBT campaigners. Sadly, too many people were ready to believe some of the malicious things said against him.

Those of us who champion LGBT human rights surely have a duty treat others in ways that are consistent with human rights values?

I knew Nikolai very well for over six years. I am fully aware of his many strengths and few weakness. Putting everything in perspective, I salute Nikolai and his contribution to LGBT freedom.

I wish him and his equally courageous Russian LGBT colleagues success in carrying forward the pioneering work he began. Special good wishes to his successors at Moscow Pride and GayRussia.Ru, respectively Alexander Naumchik and Nicholas Baev.

I also pay tribute to Nikolai’s partner Pierre for his loyal personal support and unsung backroom work for the Russian LGBT campaigns. Pierre is an extraordinary activist in his own right, although he never sought or received public recognition.

Best wishes to Nikolai, Pierre and the heroic Russian LGBT activists – those who worked with Nikolai and those who did not.

All the many activists and organisations that fight for LGBT freedom in Russia deserve our respect and admiration.

It is bizarre that the minister for equality wants to maintain the discriminatory laws that prohibit gay couples from having a religious marriage and heterosexual couples from having a civil partnership. She sounds more like the minister for inequality.

Lynne Featherstone is mean-spirited to rule out in advance any discussion on opening up civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. I stand for equality and this includes equality for straight people too. It would be wrong for the LGBT community to demand equal rights for ourselves and then ignore or accept the denial of equality to heterosexual people. In a democracy we should all be equal before the law.

There are many opposite-sex couples who would like a civil partnership. For the government to deny them this option is unfair – and illegal under human rights law. How can the equality minister support this discrimination?

France and the Netherlands have an equivalent to civil partnerships, respectively PACS and registered partnerships. They are open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The vast majority of civil partnerships in these countries are heterosexual ones. They are hugely popular there and would be equally popular here, if the government allowed straight couples to have them. To deny British heterosexuals the option of a civil partnership is profoundly unjust.

The government’s proposed continuation of the ban on gay religious marriages is another surprise. It is an infringement of religious freedom to dictate to faith organisations that they cannot carry out weddings for same-sex partners, especially since the government has already agreed to lift a similar ban on same-sex religious civil partnerships. Some religions – such as the Quakers, Unitarians and Liberal Judaism – want to conduct same-sex marriages. The equality minister says they will not be allowed to do so. While no religious body should be forced to perform gay or lesbian marriages, the government should give them the option and let them decide. It is time for legislation to end the legal prohibition on same-sex weddings conducted by faith organisations.

The consultation on gay marriage was supposed to begin in June this year. There is no excuse for postponing it until March next year. Why can’t it start now? In fact, why do we need any consultation at all? The ban on same-sex marriage is homophobic discrimination and should be repealed immediately.

No other government legislation is being subjected to such prolonged consultation. The Scottish government’s consultation on marriage equality began earlier this month. Why is the UK government dragging its feet?

If Muslim or Jewish people had been banned from marriage, the government would act swiftly to end such discrimination. There would be no long drawn out consultation period. Why the double standards?

Ending sexual orientation discrimination in marriage law is the right thing to do and it has majority public support. There is no reason for the government to delay. According to a 2009 Populous opinion poll, 61 per cent of the public believe that lesbian and gay couples should be allowed to get married.

Despite the government’s assurances, there is a serious danger that the delay will prevent marriage equality being passed before the next election. Because the consultation will not begin until March 2012, it is unlikely that legislation will be presented to parliament before mid-2013. Allowing for obstruction by the House of Lords, it is doubtful that it would be passed before late 2014, which is perilously close to the deadline for the next election. If the prime minister called an early poll, the legislation would fall.

This begs the question: is the consultation fanfare an attempt to take the heat off the government while effectively kicking same-sex marriage into the long grass?

Lynne Featherstone’s announcement is clearly an attempt to thwart the Equal Love legal case in the European Court of Human Rights, where four gay couples and four heterosexual couples are seeking to overturn sexual orientation discrimination in civil marriage and civil partnership law.

The minister won’t succeed. We are confident that the government’s decision to retain the prohibition on opposite-sex civil partnerships will be ruled illegal by the European Court of Human Rights. Please think again Lynne Featherstone.

I have been campaigning for 20 years for an evidence-based policy which protects the blood supply while not needlessly discriminating against men who’ve had sex with men.

The 12 month ban will apply even if gay and bisexual men always use a condom and even if they test HIV-negative.

Protecting the blood supply is the number one priority but ensuring blood safety does not require such a lengthy time span during which gay and bisexual men are barred from donating blood.

The blood service could have opted for a much shorter exclusion period. It should focus on excluding donors who have engaged in risky sexual behaviour and those whose HIV status cannot be accurately determined because of the delay between the date of infection and the date when the HIV virus and HIV antibodies manifest and become detectable in an infected person’s blood.

Reducing the exclusion period for blood donations from gay and bisexual men should go hand-in-hand with a ‘Safe Blood’ education campaign targeted at the gay community, to ensure that no one donates blood if they are at risk of HIV and other blood-borne infections due to unsafe sexual behaviour.

We also need a major drive to vaccinate gay and bisexual men against Hepatitis A and B, to prevent these infections getting into the blood supply.

In addition, the questionnaire that would-be blood donors have to answer should be made more detailed for men who’ve had sex with men, in order to more accurately identify the degree of risk, if any, that their blood may pose. A few additional questions would improve donor awareness of risk factors and more accurately exclude those whose blood may not be safe.

There is a strong case for only excluding men who’ve had risky sex without a condom.

Sadly, the blood service’s new policy makes no distinction between sex with a condom and sex without one. Any oral or anal sex between men in the previous 12 months – even with protection – will be grounds for continuing to refuse a donor under the new rules. This is unjustified. If a condom is used correctly, it is absolute protection against the transmission and contraction of HIV. Men who use condoms every time without breakages – and who test HIV negative – should not be barred from donating blood.

With these provisos and safeguards, a shorter exclusion period would be reasonable and not endanger the blood supply. The blood donated would be safe.

Peter Tatchell is the director of the human rights advocacy organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

But I also wanted to stand in solidarity with Muslims who oppose far right Islamists. These fundamentalists threaten and intimidate the Muslim community; especially fellow Muslims who don’t conform to their harsh, intolerant interpretation of Islam. To varying degrees, both the Islamists and the EDL menace Muslim people.

In addition, I wanted to be visible as a gay man, to demonstrate that East London is not and never will be a “Gay-Free Zone” and to show that most lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are not anti-Muslim; that there are LGBTs who want to work in solidarity with Muslim people to oppose all prejudice, discrimination and violence.

To these ends, my human rights campaign colleague Ashley McAlister and I joined the anti-EDL protest, carrying double-sided placards which read on one side: “Stop EDL & far right Islamists. No to ALL hate” and on the other side: “Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL”.

We got dirty looks from a small number of left-wing and LGBT anti-EDL protesters, some of whom said explicitly that our placards were “insensitive…provocative…inappropriate…divisive” and that I am “racist…fascist…anti-Muslim.”

There was also hostility from a minority of Muslims who were part of the anti-EDL demonstration, including attempts to snatch and rip my placard. These fanatics mostly objected to the slogan: “Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL”. I was surrounded several times throughout the day by angry Muslim youths who ordered me: “You must remove this placard…You can’t walk here with these words…We don’t allow gays in this area…Gays are not permitted here…We don’t have gays in Tower Hamlets.”

When I suggested that LGBT Muslims must also be defended against the EDL, I was told: “Gays can’t be Muslims…We will never accept them (LGBT Muslims)…They can’t come around here…We won’t allow it.”

My response was to engage with these Muslims hotheads and argue against them. The discussions got very heated; at times even menacing and scary. There were moments when I thought I was going to be physically attacked. Thankfully, this did not happen, probably because there were police nearby and, more significantly, because several Muslims intervened to defend my right to be there and to express my viewpoint. Some Muslims even thanked me for joining the anti-EDL protest.

In the course of the arguments, I diffused the hostility of quite a few Muslim critics. I suggested that love and compassion were core Islamic values and that even if Muslims personally disapproved of homosexuality there is nothing in the Qu’ran that sanctions hatred or discrimination against LGBT people. Several eventually agreed that homophobia was wrong. Some shook my hand and parted with a more ‘live and let live’ attitude – a big improvement on their initial response.

This change in attitude as a result of Ashley and I being willing to engage in dialogue was really positive and inspiring. It shows how important and effective such an engagement can be. We need more of it.

Interestingly, there was very little overt, identifiable Muslim hostility to our placard slogan: “Stop EDL & far right Islamists. No to ALL hate.” There were a few nasty, aggressive looks but that’s all. Indeed, several Muslims indicated that they also oppose the Islamist far right. They realise that extremist groups like Islam4UK and Hizb ut-Tahrir, which want to establish a religious dictatorship, threaten the human rights of mainstream Muslims. These fundamentalists have a similar bigoted agenda to the EDL and BNP.

Our experience on Saturday is further evidence that we need an East End Gay Pride that goes through the heart of the Muslim community in E1, to engage with the Muslim communities and build mutual understanding.

Interestingly, there were lots of LGBT protesters against the EDL. But I never saw a single one with a gay badge, placard, t-shirt or rainbow flag. It was as if they’d all gone back in the closet. Why? Normally, on other demos, they always proclaim their LGBT identity. How strange. Ashley McAlister and I were the only visibly gay protesters in the entire anti-EDL demonstration.

The people who called for the anti-EDL protest to be called off were mistaken. In the absence of a visible counter-protest, the EDL would have been able to rally unchallenged and claim a victory. It would have sent the wrong signal if the EDL had been permitted to claim any part of East London as its own.

Saturday’s peaceful protest against the EDL was important because it showed that most of our communities are united in solidarity and that we will not be divided by the hate-mongering of the far right.

What too many anti-fascists refuse to acknowledge is that Islamist fundamentalism mirrors the right-wing ideology of the EDL (and the BNP). In fact, the Islamist goals are much more dangerous. They want to establish a theocratic tyranny, ban trade unions and political parties and deny women equal human rights. They endorse hatred and violence against Jewish, Hindu and LGBT people. Muslims who don’t follow their particular brand of Islam would face severe persecution in their Islamist state. These fanatical sects condone terrorism and the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. Not even the BNP and EDL are this extreme.

The failure of many people on the Left to speak out against Islamist fundamentalism is de facto collusion with extremism and a betrayal of the Muslim majority. It also creates a political vacuum, which the EDL is seeking to exploit and manipulate.

Some anti-fascists argue that we should not condemn the Islamists because this will fuel anti-Muslim sentiment. Wrong. Protesting against the fundamentalists and defending mainstream Muslims is actually the most effective way to undermine Islamophobia.

In the absence of a left-wing critique of the Islamist far right, the EDL is able to pose as the sole critic of Islamist extremism and to mount indiscriminate attacks on the whole Muslim community.

This silence and inaction by many on the left is objectively (albeit unintentionally) colluding with both fundamentalist fanaticism and anti-Muslim prejudice.

To be credible and effective, opponents of the EDL need to be consistent by also taking a stand against right-wing Islamists. Only this way can we offer a principled alternative to the EDL that isolates and targets the extremists without demonising the whole Muslim population. 

Previously, there had been a series of horrific homophobic attacks outside the local George and Dragon gay pub. In one assault, a 21 year old gay man, Oliver Hemsley, was battered over the head with a glass bottle and stabbed seven times, leaving him permanently paralysed and disabled.

These gay-bashing attacks coincide with a dramatic decline in the number of gay venues in East London and some LGBT people moving out of the area because they feel it is no longer safe to live there.

The response of the LGBT community to this homophobia has been feeble. There has been no visible protest and no public affirmation that East London is not, and will never be, a gay-
free zone.

Many LGBT people want to protest against homophobia in East London. They feel frustrated, angry and let down that no effective protest has taken place. They want a non-racist, unifying event that does not demonise particular communities, but which challenges homophobia and all hatred. I share their feelings.

The suggestion that LGBT people have to tolerate homophobia for the sake of preserving good community relations and not upsetting certain communities, is totally unacceptable. It is a shabby capitulation to prejudice and a shameful betrayal of the generations of LGBT people who have fought for our equality and human rights.

Every victimised community has a moral right – and a civic duty – to fight back against their bigoted oppressors.

People who oppose an LGBT Pride march in East London would never dare tell the Black, Asian or Jewish communities that they should not protest against discrimination and violence. Why are LGBT people expected to forego their right to protest while other victimised communities are not?

I therefore urge you to organise an East London LGBT Pride march and rally, working in cooperation with local LGBT groups.

Given the mostly unchallenged homophobia and the declaration that the area is a gay-free zone, we have to protest and show that East London is not a gay-free zone. This requires LGBT visibility and the reclaiming of East London as safe and queer-friendly.

Pride London is a suitably respected and neutral body to host the event, with the necessary experience and resources.

East London Pride does not have to be big or complicated – just a simple march, with some music and a few speeches afterwards.

All you need to do is agree the date, time, assembly area, route and finishing point – and organise a small stage and sound system for the post-march rally.

Marriage equality is now the focus of many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) campaigns worldwide. It is fast becoming the litmus test in the battle for equality.

How ironic. At the very moment that heterosexual couples are deserting marriage in droves, lesbian and gay couples are rushing to embrace it.

Straight partners are falling out of love with matrimony. Provisional statistics for England and Wales show that the number of marriages in 2009 was the lowest since they were first calculated in 1862.

Far from weakening or undermining marriage, as homophobes claim, many same-sex couples seem hell-bent on shoring up an institution that is, for many heterosexuals, failing, discredited and irrelevant.

While the push for same-sex marriage is an issue of equality, which I support, it also signifies the rising conservatism of the LGBT community and a loss of radical vision. It reeks of assimilationism and conformism with the straight status quo.

As we celebrated Gay Pride in London on Saturday, with calls for marriage equality, the sceptical, questioning attitudes of the early lesbian and gay liberation pioneers were almost entirely absent.

Marriage has a long history of sexism and patriarchy; being originally devised to ensure the male sexual control of women and the inheritance of property through the male line, from father to son. Even the language of marriage is misogynistic. An alternative meaning for the word husband is ‘to manage’, which sums up the relationship between men and women in many marriages, past and present. Traditionally, the father of the bride gives away his daughter to her husband-to-be, symbolising the passing of women from one man to another. For all these reasons, I am not a great fan of marriage.

Indeed, I have proposed a new, more egalitarian and flexible system of relationship recognition and rights – what I have called a Civil Commitment Pact (CCP).

Under this CCP system, which seeks to recognise all relationships of mutual care and commitment, an individual could nominate any ‘significant other’ person in their life as their next of kin and beneficiary. In the case of a couple, they would be able to select from a menu of rights and responsibilities to create a CCP that is tailor-made to their particular circumstances and needs; thereby accommodating the wide range and diversity of modern relationships.

Speaking personally, I would not want to get married. I agree with the feminist critique. However, as a human rights campaigner, I strongly and actively defend the right of others to marry, if they wish.

Moreover, the ban on same-sex marriage is homophobic discrimination. All discrimination is wrong and should be opposed. Since marriage exists, it ought to be open to everyone.

For these reasons, despite my reservations about the institution of marriage, I am coordinating the Equal Love campaign, which seeks to end sexual orientation discrimination in both civil marriage and civil partnership law. It is a simple issue: equality for all.

Under current UK legislation, gay couples are banned from civil marriages and heterosexual couples are banned from civil partnerships. The homophobia of the ban on same-sex civil marriages is compounded by the heterophobia of the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Arbitrarily excluding straight couples from civil partnerships is just as reprehensible as denying gay partners access to civil marriage.

Imagine the outcry if the government banned black couples from getting married and offered them civil partnerships instead. Most people would condemn separate laws for black and white people as racism and apartheid, like the legislation that once existed in South Africa.

Well, in Britain today, black couples are not banned from marriage but gay couples are. Legally, this is a form of sexual apartheid – one law for gay couples and another law for heterosexual partners. In a democratic society, we should all be equal before the law.

To challenge this discrimination, eight British couples – four gay and four heterosexual – filed a joint legal application to the European Court of Human Rights on February 2nd, seeking to overturn the twin bans on gay civil marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships.

We are confident that the European Court will eventually rule in our favour. But we’d much prefer the government to bring forward legislation of its own free will, to put right an obvious inequality.

The British people are ready for change, with a clear majority in favour of allowing same-sex partners to marry. A Populus poll for the Times newspaper in June 2009 found that 61 per cent of the public believe that: “Gay couples should have an equal right to get married, not just to have civil partnerships.” Only 33 per cent disagreed.

The deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and London Mayor Boris Johnson back marriage equality, as do the leaders of Labour and the Greens, respectively Ed Miliband and Caroline Lucas. Only David Cameron is holding out against same-sex marriage rights. What is he afraid of?

For an alternate view from gay porn producer Michael Lucas, who has written about LGBT rights in Israel, click here.

The decision of the International LGBTQ Youth and Student Organisation (IGLYO) to hold its General Assembly (GA) in Israel this December is divisive, exclusionist, mistaken and regrettable.

It will probably mean that some Palestinian, Arab and Muslim delegates will not be able to attend, because of travel restrictions between their countries and Israel.

I support the call by Palestinian LGBTI groups and individuals for IGLYO to reconsider its decision and to open up a genuine dialogue and debate with the wider LGBTI movement, especially with Palestinian LGBTI groups.

I endorse the demand that IGLYO and the Israeli GA host organisation, Israeli Gay Youth (IGY), should take a stand against the Israeli occupation and in support of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people, in the same way that the international LGBTI movement took a stand against South African apartheid. There can be no fence-sitting when it comes to human rights.

Since human rights are universal, we cannot divorce LGBTI rights from the national rights of the Palestinian people. These are two aspects of the same struggle for universal human rights.

It is true that on LGBTI human rights Israel is, by far, the most progressive nation in the region. However, human rights should not be viewed from a gayist perspective. LGBTI rights do not trump all other human rights.

LGBTI support for the long-suffering Palestinian people is the right thing to do. It is also the best chance we have of eventually securing the human rights of LGBTI people living in Palestine. If we support Palestinian national rights, the Palestinians are more likely to support the human rights of LGBTIs.

For four decades, I have been involved, as an openly gay man, in the Palestinian solidarity movement. So have other LGBTIs. We have, over time, helped win some Palestinians to support LGBTI human rights. Our example of solidarity led them to question and eventually reject their homophobia.

In contrast, holding the IGLYO conference in Israel is likely to increase and inflame the already existing homophobia in the Arab world. LGBTI people will, rightly or wrongly, be seen as supporting Israel. This will further jeopardise the precarious plight of our LGBTI sisters and brothers in the Middle East. Is this what we want?

Just as the international LGBTI movement boycotted apartheid South Africa and collaborationist South African LGBTI organisations, so we should avoid appearing to sanction Israel’s illegal occupation of seized Palestine territories and not cooperate with Israeli organisations that refuse to take a stand against an occupation that is illegal under international law.

Israel’s annexation and occupation of Palestinian land in 1967 has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations and by human rights groups and humanitarians worldwide, including our great allies against homophobia, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

I believe the international LGBTI movement should be committed to peace with justice, where Israelis and Palestinians live together in security, equality and harmony. This means national and human rights for all the Palestinian people, LGBTI and straight.

It also means an end to indiscriminate rocket and suicide attacks on innocent Israeli civilians by Islamist organisations, and an end to Israel’s indiscriminate blockade of Gaza, which amounts to an illegal collective punishment of innocent Gaza citizens.

It sounds hard to believe right now, but peace with justice could happen with sincere political will on both sides. Only a few years ago in Northern Ireland, most people deemed it impossible that that the DUP and Sinn Fein could share power and end discrimination and violence. But it has happened. The security barriers are gone and the sectarian killing has stopped. The communities are working together for the common good. Northern Ireland is a model for a potential just peace between Israel and Palestine.

Israel is, of course, just one of many states that have annexed and occupied other nations: Pakistan is occupying Balochistan, Indonesia is occupying West Papua, Morocco is occupying the Western Sahara, Iran and Turkey are occupying parts of Kurdistan and so on.

While I oppose Israel’s occupation, I find it strange that some people condemn Israel while remaining silent about these other equally (or worse) oppressive occupations. Many of Israel’s critics are also silent about the neighbouring Arab dictatorships. And where are the protests and calls for boycotts against the tyrannies in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Syria and elsewhere? Why the double standards?

To read a longer version of this article, click here.

The negligible media coverage of Mohammed Hasnath’s conviction is rather surprising. His case has since prompted explosive claims of judicial homophobia, the criminalisation of free speech and the failure of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities to challenge Islamist homophobia.

Hasnath, aged 18, was found guilty of posting homophobic stickers in London’s East End. The stickers declared the area a “Gay Free Zone” and advised: “Arise and warn… And fear Allah: Verily Allah is severe in punishment.”

These stickers were wrong and clearly motivated by homophobic prejudice. Such prejudice – indeed all prejudice – needs to be challenged.

Disturbingly, it appears that Hasnath has fundamentalist sympathies. On his Facebook page he lists Sheikh Khalid Yasin as one of his interests. Yasin is on record as abusing “homosexuals” and saying they should be put to death.

There are, however, several troubling aspects to Hasnath’s conviction:

He was fined a mere £100. If the stickers had declared east London a Jewish, black, Catholic or Muslim free zone Hasnath would have been almost certainly convicted of a racially or religiously aggravated hate crime and jailed. Why the leniency? Why the double standards? It looks like judicial homophobia.

Hasnath is an easy, convenient scapegoat. He was a lowly foot soldier. There is no evidence that he organised the Gay Free Zone campaign. The slow, secretive police investigation did not inspire confidence. Officers failed to apprehend the masterminds who produced the stickers and then distributed them to people like Hasnath. They’ve got away with it.

Hasnath was convicted using a discredited, authoritarian law, Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, which has been used repeatedly to suppress peaceful, legitimate protests by human rights defenders, including LGBT campaigners.

This is what happened to members of OutRage! when six of us protested against 6,000 members the Islamist group, Hizb ut Tahrir, outside their mass rally at Wembley Arena in 1994.

They called for the killing of gays, apostates, Jews and unchaste women. They were not arrested but we were. Our crime? Displaying placards that condemned Hizb ut Tahrir’s incitement to murder. Although our placards did nothing more than factually expose the fundamentalist’s violent homophobic agenda, it was deemed that they were distressing and offensive.

Section 5 is draconian and sweeping. It prohibits behaviour likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress”. Yes, even causing mere distress to faint-hearts is now a crime.

This law can be abused to criminalise almost any words or actions. Campaigns against religious homophobia, like the OutRage! protest at Wembley, have many times resulted in LGBT activists being arrested under Section 5 for causing distress to homophobes and their religious supporters. We should not be rejoicing that the court used against Hasnath a harsh law that has so often been used unjustly against us. There is other, more credible, legislation that could have been used to bring him to justice.

The court’s ruling in the Hasnath case broadens the criminalising nature of Section 5. Well-meaning District Judge Jeremy Coleman said:

“I think you used these stickers deliberately to offend and distress people, you certainly succeeded in doing that….You have upset people and they deserve an apology, you are not entitled to behave in this way.”

The judge suggested that not only is causing distress a crime, but so is offending people and making them upset. Causing upset is, in my view, a much too low threshold for criminalisation. After all, almost anything that anyone says or does has the potential to cause someone upset, including teaching evolution, advocating abortion and suggesting that religion is a form of superstition.

Under Judge Coleman’s particularly wide interpretation and application of Section 5, most of the population are criminals. If we accept that causing upset should be illegal, as he implied at the Hasnath hearing, we risk closing down free and open debate and criminalising all manner of dissenting opinions and alternative lifestyles that some people might find upsetting.

Freedom of expression is one of the most important of all human rights. It should be only restricted in extreme and very limited circumstances. The open exchange of ideas – including unpalatable ideas – is a hallmark of a free and democratic society. There is no right to be not distressed, upset or offended. Some of the most profound ideas in history – such as those of Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin – caused great distress and offence in their time. While bigoted opinions should always be challenged, in most instances only explicit incitements to violence and damaging libels (such as false allegations of tax fraud or child abuse) should be criminalised.

Moreover, why did the Hasnath stickers provoke howls of rage from the LGBT community, when far worse homophobia in the same area of east London stirred hardly a murmur of protest? I don’t recall any campaigns by LGBT groups or anti-fascist organisations in response to the wave of horrific queer-bashing attacks in the East End. Surely this actual physical violence – which left at least one gay man permanently disabled – is much more deserving of protests than a few stickers? Where is the LGBT outcry over homophobic assaults?

Nor can I remember any protests when the East London Mosque/London Muslim Centre hosted a series of virulently homophobic speakers, including Uthman Lateef and Abdul Karim Hattim. The latter gave lecturers in which he invited young Muslims to “Spot the Fag.”

The East London Mosque/London Muslim Centre helped create the atmosphere of hatred that has poisoned the minds of many Muslim youths, probably including Hasnath who worshipped there. They have never apologised for hosting homophobic hate preachers and have never given any assurances that they will not host them again in the future. Apart from OutRage!, no LGBT groups have publicly demanded that they do so. Why the silence from LGBT organisations that are supposedly dedicated to fighting homophobia?

Equally, there were no protests when Abdul Muhid openly incited the murder of gay people in East London and when the Crown Prosecution Service refused to bring him to trial. In my opinion, encouraging murder is many times more serious and dangerous than calling for a Gay Free Zone. Again, no protests by LGBT groups.

When OutRage! stood alone in challenging Muhid and the East London Mosque/London Muslim Centre we were denounced by some people as racists and Islamophobes. This is nonsense. We never attacked anyone because of their race or religion. We condemned their homophobia, in the same way that we condemn the homophobic bigotry of fundamentalists of all faiths.

Many LGBT campaigners are now terrified of similar false, malicious allegations of racism or Islamophobia. To avoid such smears, they shy away from robust responses to homophobia when it comes from religious and racial minorities. This inaction is de facto collusion with homophobia.

This article was first published at newstatesman.com. 

We witnessed a high level of fraternisation and collusion between neo-Nazis and the Moscow police. I saw neo-Nazis leave and re-enter police buses parked on Tverskaya Street by City Hall

Our suspicion is that many of the neo-Nazis were actually plainclothes police officers, who did to us what their uniformed colleagues dared not do in front of the world’s media. Either that, or the police were actively facilitating the right-wing extremists with transport to the protest.

During the Second World War, Mucovites stood against the Nazis. Now the Mayor of Moscow is colluding with neo-Nazis. He gave the neo-Nazi groups permission to stage a protest calling for violence against gay people, while denying Moscow Gay Pride a permit to rally for gay equality.

I went to City Hall to protest but was separated from our Gay Pride group. Neo-Nazis identified me for attack. Being alone and with the police refusing to protect us, I had to escape down side streets and alleyways to avoid a beating.
A total of 18 gay rights protesters – 15 of them Russian – were arrested, as they tried to stage the banned Moscow Gay Pride parade.

Some of the Moscow Gay Pride participants were seized by police bear the Kremlin, including international gay rights supporters Andy Thayer, Dan Choi and Louis-Georges Tin; plus Moscow Gay Pride committee member, Anna Komarova and other Russian gay activists.

Several more Russian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) campaigners were arrested outside City Hall.

These arrests took place between 1pm and 2pm Moscow time.

Dan Choi, a US military officer who was dismissed from the American armed forces because of his homosexuality, was violently manhandled by police. He was wrestled to ground and punched. He has some minor injuries.

Neo-Nazis made repeated attempts to bash the LGBT campaigners as they were being arrested and taken to police buses. Some of the campaigners were struck but none were hurt seriously.

Anna Komarova reports being pressured by the police to give information about the organisation of Moscow Gay Pride. The police threatened to detain her for 48 hours unless she gave them the information they wanted.

By 6pm Moscow time, all 18 arrested gay pride protesters had been released. 

IDAHO is supported by dozens of governments, including the UK, and by many international government institutions, from the United Nations to the European Union. But the Commonwealth is not lending its support, nor are most Commonwealth countries. They want nothing to do with LGBT rights.

The Commonwealth is a bastion of global homophobia, often bucking the worldwide trend towards sexual orientation equality, with increased state-sanctioned threats and repression in Malawi, Uganda, The Gambia, Malaysia, Cameroon and Nigeria.

The 54 Commonwealth member states comprise one quarter of the UN membership and one third of all humanity. Forty-six of these Commonwealth countries still criminalise same-sex relations in all circumstances, with penalties including 25 years jail in Trinidad and Tobago and 20 years plus flogging in Malaysia. Several countries stipulate life imprisonment: Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Uganda, Tanzania and Bangladesh.

These 46 homophobic Commonwealth countries account for more than half of the 76 countries in the world that still have a total prohibition on homosexuality.

Nearly all the Commonwealth’s anti-gay laws are the poisonous legacy of British colonialism. They were originally imposed by the British government in the nineteenth century, during the period of colonial rule – and never repealed when the former colonies won their freedom. The post-independence leaders retained the homophobic mindset of their colonial masters. Nowadays, many of their countrymen and women absurdly proclaim that the legal proscription of homosexuality is an authentic expression of indigenous national culture and tradition.

The Commonwealth is failing to challenge homophobia. This is somewhat surprising because the Commonwealth defines itself as a free and equal association of nations committed to the core principles of democracy, human rights, equality, non-discrimination, opportunity for all, liberty of the individual and human dignity.

Indeed, one of its catch phrases is Human Rights: More than Words. Shame about the reality.

The Commonwealth has never issued a formal declaration in support of LGBT human rights, let alone embarked on a programme of action to challenge the rampant homophobia and transphobia in its member states. Perhaps this is not surprising, since the Commonwealth has a long history of feeble responses to all human rights abuses, including Mugabe’s murder and mayhem in Zimbabwe and the current violent suppression of protests in Uganda.

In the case of LGBT people, the Commonwealth’s core principles are routinely violated by nearly all Commonwealth countries – and without rebuke by the leaders of the Commonwealth. As a result, millions of LGBT Commonwealth citizens are at risk of discrimination, harassment, arrest, torture, rape, imprisonment and mob attacks.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma, stands accused of a systematic, persistent and wilful failure to condemn homophobic discrimination and violence. He offered no strong condemnation of Malawi’s arrest and jailing of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga on charges of homosexuality last year. Likewise, his criticism of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which proposed the death penalty for same-sex acts, was muted. Although he did say discrimination is wrong, he also said this about the proposed legislation: “The bill is now in the Ugandan parliament – in any Commonwealth country, that is exactly where such a national issue should be debated. Let us see what the people of Uganda decide.” This quasi neutral stance is hardly what we expect when a Commonwealth member state is proposing to execute its own citizens for consenting, victimless behaviour.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General has repeatedly ignored letters and appeals from LGBT campaigners. When I wrote to Mr Sharma, asking what the Commonwealth was doing to tackle homophobia, he declined to reply. Weeks later, a lower ranking official sent a letter about the Commonwealth’s work combating HIV, which did not even mention gay rights. A similar thing happened to Godwyns Onwuchekwa of Justice for Gay Africans. No reply. Our requests for Mr Sharma to meet us and other Commonwealth LGBT campaigners have been spurned.

I get the feeling that the Secretary-General does not care much about the human rights of LGBT Commonwealth citizens. He seems to regard the issue as an embarrassment and distraction.

Whatever excuses the Commonwealth may offer in its defence, one fact is indisputable: in the 62 years of its existence it has never debated LGBT human rights. Its leaders have never issued any policy document specifically dedicated to combating persecution on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. They have never produced a formal statement calling on member states to decriminalise same-sex acts and provide legal protection to LGBT people against discrimination and hate crimes. This silence shows the true face of the Commonwealth: a bastion of homophobic persecution, collusion and appeasement.

If the Secretary-General can’t robustly defend universal human rights and equality for LGBT people, he is unfit for high office and should resign.

This article was first published on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website. The original can be found here. http://tiny.cc/79gcy