The Public Life Of A Militant Homosexual

I remember, a few years ago turning round to some friends and explaining that I was really getting too old to head out onto the streets and protest. Yet a number of events have made me think again about this. Tomorrow I will join people in Trafalgar Square to light a candle and stand silently to register my solidarity with victims of homophobia in an event I never thought I'd see again - some on the streets gay rights activism.

Since the changes in laws of the past decade, there has been a shift in tone by a great number of voices in the gay community. Having gained some significant victories in the drive for equality a significant number of people seemed to feel that the battle was won. We could put away our banners and leave all the angry stuff to Peter Tatchell. It was all a bit too militant for those stuffing themselves full of cake and champagne at whoever's civil partnership ceremony they were attending that weekend. Taking to the streets has never been something the majority of people want to do, and gays and lesbians are no exception. Especially when can walk through Old Compton Street and the rest of Central London hand in hand with your partner, boyfriend/girlfriend, significant other, or whatever other term you use to describe the person you are currently stepping out with.

Yet the reality for a great many people isn't quite like that. There are still many who consider the mere fact of this as an act of militant homosexuality - something that they will not tolerate in public. Those were the views of Nick Griffin, although they are not confined to the BNP. A great many other people, fundamentally opposed to the far right, openly share those views. Earlier this year I was heading home after a night out with someone, and when we stopped to kiss a car with a group of mouthy young boys stopped their car to hurl abuse at us. Instead of just walking away, we stood our ground and shouted back. Eventually they drove off. I remember at the time feeling quite exhilarated at the fact that it was now possible to do this. We were in Central London, just around the corner from Trafalgar Square.

A few months after that, at the end of September, Ian Baynham did pretty much the same thing to a group of people. He was violently assaulted by two women and a man and on 13th October he died from his injuries. James Parkes a 22 year-old trainee police officer was violently attacked by a group of youths aged between 13 and 16 last Sunday in Liverpool. These are just two of the high profile victims of homophobia. In an age of perceived equality these things are still happening. Usually it's thought that it's the people living in small towns who suffer in silence facing abuse and worse if they publicly declare their sexuality. Yet these two high profile attacks happened in places where seeing gays and lesbians publicly displaying their affections has been more commonplace.

It's against this backdrop that there will be candlelit vigils this weekend organised by people at grassroots level. The one in London, tomorrow was arranged a few weeks ago but seems to have suddenly caught itself in the zeitgeist. It's been arranged by a group set up to fight both racism, homophobia, and intolerance in remembrance of the people killed and injured in the nail bombing campaign which took place in Brick Lane, Brixton, and Soho ten years ago. The Liverpool one is much the same kind of response, ordinary people deciding to stand up and do something. This kind of grassroots activism is welcome, joined as it is by the East London Homophobia group - set up to monitor levels of homophobia and raise awareness of the issue in East London. It's a welcome antidote to Stonewall's increasing cosy work.

Their "some people are gay, get over it!" campaign has their trademark soft centred tone of self satisfaction. It seems we've won equality so let's all sit down and be nice to each other, having all the sincerity and unity of one of those Benetton ads from the 80's. Well I'm gay and I'm not getting over it, I'm glad to say. It's not an illness I can recover from (whatever some might believe). The Stonewall website seems almost blissfully ignorant of this demonstration, and there is no sign of any encouragement from them to join those in Trafalgar Square tomorrow. The website's only listed event is their own awards ceremony (which should read, are taking place, and not is, as you've pluralised awards). I will write something more on my thoughts about this organisation in another piece, as this isn't even the tip of the iceberg on my thoughts about this organisation...

Still, there are many who think the victories of recent legistlation have handed equality to gays and lesbians on a plate which is cloud cuckoo land thinking. When equality is won in law, it needs preserving, the fight to maintain it is just as hard. Look at the number of women MP's there aren't, or top female executives, black or Asian MP's, the fact that the Metropolitan Police was discirbed as institutionally racist 26 years after the Race Relations Act was passed, that women still struggle to receive equal pay in the workplace almost 40 years since the Equal Pay Act. These are just some of facts that sum up the reality that the battles for equality are never over.

I've been verbally abused, threatened, and intimidated largely by people who thought I was gay on a number of occasions in my life, but consider myself lucky that I've only been actually assaulted once. I remember going to my first Gay Pride in 1990 and looking at the faces of the people there and noticing how many of them had little scars on their faces, clearly some had been as result of being gay. I grew up in a small town and I faced homophobia all the time. It isn't nice and it needs to stop, but that will take time. I'm not a radical, I'm not a militant homosexual but I will stand up and be counted. I believe I have a right to be respected for who I am (which is many, many different things) and I have the right to be treated as equal who happens to be gay. Tomorrow I light a candle to stand up and add my voice to the people want to say enough, I light a candle to say I am not afraid, I light a candle for all the people who can't be there.