From ignored to illegal,

tolerated to integrated

Adam KnowlesChair of the Gay and

Lesbian Humanist Association

www.galha.org

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Illegal

There’s the almighty gavel of justice coming down on some matter, perhaps Oscar Wilde or

something.

Because homosexual acts were less ignored than homosexuality. A couple of random

examples are

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That itself reveals a focus on sex rather than relationships. In fact I’d call it an obsession, often

encouraged by the major world religions. Sodomy, sodomites, Sodom and Gomorrah. Gay

SEX is what the church wants to rail against. In the Church of England clergy are allowed to

be ‘gay’ so long as they’re ‘celibate’.

Well the trouble with ‘gay sex’ is that if you want to outlaw sodomy, go ahead but you’ll be

including a rather large number of straight people.

And what constitutes Lesbian sex, where do you draw a line between heavy petting as they

call it on those posters at swimming pools - and sex, if you want to legislate about it?

But the threat to the Church isn’t really gay sex. It’s gay love, gay relationships. The gay rights

movement is self-consciously more about love than it is about sex. It’s the idea that two guys

or two girls can embark upon a relationship, that love can be involved, and that no social

stigma will be attached to this. The obsession with ‘gay sex’ comes from elsewhere.

Gay subcultures arose in response. Gay language Polari, “"4%8%>=*%26*.%-4%28)%-''*58'%4(%?*%589

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What happened next?N

Tolerated

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Integrated

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)('@>(.%4(%589%=8,,-85*:%Dhat, was created in the UK in 2004, just 6 years ago. Attitude (gay mag) publishes a ‘Youth’

issue and has done every year 1996 - 2010. If you read those you see a certain trajectory, an improvement. Today wehave metrosexuals, lipstick lesbians and ’straight-acting’ gays. A quick survey of anthropology shows a hugely diverse

range of relationships e.g. polygamy (many wives), polyamory (many husbands). In a short time, marriage has movedfrom being primarily based on politics or practical reasons (power, wealth, children needed to sustain/work for the

family) to one based on love. What next? I hope I'm able to convey something of the feeling that this is an excitingtime of real change in the social integration of homosexuality.

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2(,'/:%;@4%-4B)%46*,*%8./%-4B)%,*8':%Humanist viewpoint. No 'higher purpose', no God-given meaning to our lives. We

generate meaning through the relationships we have with other people. Still a need for LGBT groups, still a need for aHumanist approach to LGBT issues. For people to march at Pride. And if we don't, 'good men doing nothing', we'll see

things slide until there's another crises point. More to my point, if we DO succeed in our battle to rid the world ofhomophobia, we remove the need for gay rights activists, for a separate gay identity and culture. Rather like a dentist

or a policeman, if we do our job perfectly, that is educate to prevent problems arising in the first place, we're working

towards being unnecessary. And rather like teeth or crowds, because humans are involved and a 'perfect job' isimpossible, there will always be a need for them. And that’s why GALHA, for instance, continues to exist. A')(%46*%2(,3

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