The war for justice and equality goes on

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Many people of different sexualities have been led to believe for some time under the current government that we have achieved gay equality. We haven’t. Not only do gay men and women still run the risk of verbal and physical abuse on the street and in their families and neighbourhoods, but they are unable to simply hold hands when in public unless they are either in the back arse of beyond or happen to be walking down Compton Street in London’s Soho, where there is safety in numbers.

Legislatively, some—not all—of the battles have been won, but hearts and minds are far from universally free of bigotry and the inclination to stigmatise. The war is not over.

Adoption is one key area where the rights of gay couples on paper seem well-thought-out, but in practice there are a host of complex issues and interactions brought to bear. Prejudice is no longer acceptable if worn loudly on the lapel and gods forbid it is ever vocalised directly. This doesn’t, however, mean that it has gone away. Ethnic groups will be equally (no pun intended) familiar with subtle and diverted prejudice in the workplace and society. The basic rule of the bigot is if you can’t get them one way, because of the law, get them another. And so adoption applicants are tarred with justification of past medical histories, often because gay men and lesbians involving mental health issues somewhere along the way because of the discrimination they faced, and the traumas of coming out; employees are sacked for apparently perfectly acceptable reasons; candidates for jobs are rejected, again for reasons that sound right on paper; and so on and so forth…

This is a multi-page entry: page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4 page 5 page 6

categories: lgbt, rattle bag