But take a look at the comments left on this story, or almost any other story predominantly featuring Stonewall, and what is immediately obvious is the depth of anger, the feelings of so much disappointment with Stonewall, with their policies and their actions. I don’t think that the critics are only from a disgruntled minority, I think there is widespread and growing disillusion with Stonewall, a feeling that they are getting it wrong too many times, that they no longer speak for the everyday LGBT person.

On the issue of marriage, Stonewall are certainly getting it wrong. One comment from last weeks’ story sums it up for me;

What is it that Stonewall doesn't get about this?

Many of us aren't interested in civil partnerships – WE WANT FULL EQUAL ACCESS TO MARRIAGE.

That's what Stonewall should be campaigning on, not entrenching this second-class status we have now. Get a grip, Stonewall.

Comment by David — November 19, 2009 @ 2:25

What campaigning for religious civil partnerships does is undermine one of the strongest arguments for overturning the ban on same sex marriage. Article 9, Section 1 of the Human Rights Act guarantees the freedom of thought, conscience and religion; and for individuals to manifest that religion or belief in worship, practice, teaching and observance.

Marriage is fundamental to many faiths, including faiths that are inclusive of LGBT people and same sex couples. The law as it stands separates a congregation by sexual orientation, allowing straight members of that faith to practice their religious teaching and marry, whilst the LGBT section of the congregation can only receive a legally meaningless blessing, being forced to have a secular civil partnership.

If religious civil partnerships were introduced, it would correct that discrepancy, but then what are you left with? Two systems of recognition for couples, with marriage still legally denied to same sex couples. And for what reason? Does Ben Summerskill, OBE, believe that marriage is between one man and one woman? Does he think same sex couples don’t deserve marriage? Does he think that gays can’t handle a marriage?

A real answer would be nice. Stonewall are actively undermining the argument for full marriage equality through their actions, to know why seems the least they could do.

Marriage isn’t just important socially or personally, but still politically. The Conservatives have a policy of granting more tax breaks to married couples. Would this automatically be extended to civil partnerships? No Tory will give you a straight answer on that. And every time the rights or benefits of marriage changes, gay groups will have to spend their precious little time and resources lobbying for that change to be included for civil partners.

And each time the civil partnership act is amended to keep up with marriage, the absurdity of having two separate systems becomes clearer. The gap between commitments to equality and actions that promote equality becomes wider. The unanswered question doesn’t go away, it only gets louder, why can’t we just get married?

But I think the root of their growing dislocation from the everyday gay is not just in the civil partnership issue, but is deeper, yet at the same time the most obvious.

They have forgotten the meaning of the word Stonewall.

June 1969, the gay icon Judy Garland had just died. In the early hours of that morning, the men in drag, the trannies, the screaming fairies, butch dykes, and queens that went to the Stonewall Inn, many mourning her death, were being arrested and dragged out of the bar.

Like the spark of revolutions in other places, an extraordinary set of circumstances produced a moment in time where history turned. For every Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning person alive today, without question we owe where we are right now to those who rebelled at the Stonewall Inn.

The well built drag queen who smacked a policeman over the head with her purse, the flamers and hustlers that uprooted a parking meter and used it as a battering ram to get back into the bar and help their sisters and brothers, the queens and fairies who pushed back after they were pushed too far, they are the ones that let even the most straight acting among us live and work openly.

Yet today, there is no T in Stonewall. ‘Equality’ for Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals yes; Transgender people? All those who don’t quite fit into the L or G or B? Look somewhere else.

I have heard that this is because there are specific Transgender groups; that some Transgender activists wish to advocate for things themselves and want their own organisations.

If we know one thing as LGBT people, it’s that diversity is good. So why does this stop Stonewall doing T? How can there be too many groups advocating for Transgender equality? Why would it be a bad thing for messages of Trans inclusion and rights to come from many diverse and inclusive groups, rather than just a few?

No one can or should ever split up the LGBT community. By doing so, the very genesis of the entire gay rights movement is at a stroke forgotten. It was no straight acting conformists that initiated that rebellion in 1969. It was fags, queers, camp men and butch women that through punches and pushed back.

That’s why Stonewall are getting it wrong. Its not just marriage, civil partnerships or the Equality bill. its that they have compromised one too many times, they have conformed just a little too much, they are dividing the LGBT community just too many times.

They have forgotten the meaning of Stonewall.

Many believe that what Elton has sought to do, and what Madonna and Angelina Jolie have both done; taking children from disadvantaged countries to lives of untold luxury, is wrong. These mega-millionaires, billionaires even, should instead invest their time and money improving the lot of as many children in these poor countries as they can; by building new and better orphanages, providing access to medical care, clean water and healthy food.

Perhaps singling one child out for a life of opportunity whilst leaving others in a state of despair is utterly outrageous, perhaps it is a noble and loving act of giving love and a family to someone who would otherwise have none.

But these are not the things the Ukrainian Government considered when it rejected Elton Johns’ proposed adoption of little Lev. It is because, as Minister Yuriy Pavlenko has said, the mega star is too old and not married. The age gap is certainly wide. Elton is 62, much more than the 45 years the Ukrainian Government says is the maximum age difference for adoptive parents. However his civil partner, David Furnish, at 46 would be within the age limit, and it could be argued in any court or to an adoption official that the wealth and opportunity that Elton John and his partner could offer an adopted child would far outweigh the possibly reduced length of time that Elton John would have with the child due to his age.

The fact that the Ukrainian Government has rejected Elton John because he is not married is worrying, but true. However it can hardly be the fault of Ukraine, a generally conservative Eastern European nation heading into what will be a turbulent election period, to refuse to recognise a civil partnership between a gay couple as the same as marriage. Yes it shows the Ukrainian Government has having an unenlightened view on gay rights, but no one could reasonably expect anything else from this badly divided nation struggling to pull free of its Communist past and menacing Russian neighbour.

This instead exposes a fundamental flaw in the very concept of the British civil partnership scheme. Whenever UK citizens ask their Governments about the full right to marry their same sex partner, the responses that have been received from both Scottish and UK Governments, and in fact from Stonewall UK has been thus: ‘civil partnerships are fine, you get practically the same rights as married couples, you can even get dressed up and have a ceremony down at registry office, so stop bothering us and don’t push your luck.’

Although many people who believe in same sex marriage view this argument as deeply offensive and plain discrimination, it isn’t technically wrong. We DO get virtually the same rights as married couples, which is good, but without a doubt we need to go further and have full marriage equality across the UK. This aside, we then encounter the problem of international recognition of UK same sex couples. Whereas a married same sex couple can move from Canada to Belgium to Spain to Iowa and still be married, the minute they step onto British shores they are relegated to civil partnership status. Therefore when a British ‘civilly partnered’ (what is the actual verb?) couple moves to a jurisdiction that has taken the bold step to allow same sex marriage, it leaves the British couple in a legal limbo, it may even force them to have ANOTHER ceremony to ensure they get the rights they are entitled to as a couple.

The fact is that civil partnership is not a marriage, the British Government never wanted it to be classed as marriage, but our culture has somewhat embraced this as our own British style of same sex marriage, without the protests and court cases, and of course without the name or ancient traditions. So when Elton and David had their civil partnership ceremony, the media celebrated this as a ‘marriage’. Sometimes with inverted commas and a hint of tongue in cheek; other times genuinely inferring that they considered the partnership to as good as a wedding and refered to it as such. This widespread embracing of civil partnerships by society as ‘gay marriage’ has perhaps contributed to the apathetic feeling to real same sex marriage in the UK.

But the case of Elton John proves that for all the similarities, it allows all those who have well entrenched disdain for gay partnerships and the LGBT community to easily sneer at these ‘pretend weddings’ and ‘so called marriages’, and continue to view and treat same sex couples and LGBT people as less then equals, as different from ‘normal’ society and therefore deny them the right to family, security and full citizenship.

The reason same sex marriage is so contentious and civil partnerships, civil unions and domestic partnerships are by comparison not is partly because same sex marriage forces those with less than inclusive views to confront their prejudices and stereotypes. When they have to consider these people they dislike as equals, it puts them on the defensive. In the same way the male elite opposed votes for women, segregationists fought against sharing schools with African-Americans, and racists today claim President Obama is trying to destroy the American way of life; to accept that someone has the same rights as you have, to vote, go to school or become President, is to invariably accept them as the same as you.

Had Elton and David been legally allowed a real marriage, whether they would have wanted it or not, would perhaps not have let them give 14 month old Lev a new life, but it would have forced Ukrainian Government officials to consider the fact Britain believes two husbands can do just as good a job raising a child as can a husband and wife. You don’t change people’s minds by playing to their preconceived beliefs, you do it by forcing them to confront the prejudices they hold. That is why same sex marriage is so important, not just as a matter of equality, but as a way of proving to those who hide behind stereotypes that two wives or two husbands can do just as good a job as loving each other, raising children and contributing to society as anyone else.

Our evidence we presented to parliament is available here http://www.lgbtnetwork.eu/?page_id=1024  and you can see for yourself how a change in the criteria is best to keep blood products safe.

Unlike Stonewall and others, this ban cannot just be seen as discrimination. No one has a right to be a blood donor, but those who are allowed to donate blood have a responsibility to practice safe sex. We know many many gay and bi men do, and many, many straight men do not.

Therefore to make blood as safe as possible, the donor eligibility should be based on factors such as when was the last time a person had unprotected sex or sex with a new partner and when did the person last have an HIV test. An HIV negative man who is having safe sex with another man is prevented from donating, yet a straight man who had unprotected sex with a woman he KNEW to be HIV + can donate after a year.

This is part of a larger need for us to look again at HIV. As we showed in our evidence to parliament, the majority of new infections are from heterosexual people. HIV is something we all must think about, we all must protect ourselves and we all must get tested, regularly.

Reviewing the donor eligibility criteria for blood donations is an important first step in creating a new attitude to HIV that is based on facts not fear, and this review is a good move towards that.

New jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, even the Mormon ruled state of Utah, are all grappling with this issue, well over a half century since Separate but Equal was ruled unconstitutional. Today it is still the dominant feature of the civil rights question, as it has been in days gone by.

 Martin Luther King, told us over and over he had been to the mountain top; that he had seen the Promised Land, and it was going to be built in the deepest, racist and most violent part of the south – that out of segregation, a nation of equality could be built.

Well we have seen it too. We know what our promised land looks like because we have lived it; in Massachusetts, in Connecticut, in Spain and South Africa, and for too little time we lived it in California.

It is time it comes here.

Tuesday 17^th March, the Scottish Parliament will step into that ever growing line of legislatures who have been held accountable before their citizens as we ask for the rights we have been promised. The Prime Minister has called this inequality in Marriage unacceptable, he is right. There are couples clamouring at the gates of churches who will gladly marry them before the eyes of God but right now the law says no.

The law says no, we cannot have what others take for granted. The law says no, we cannot tell the world about our husbands or our wives and no, we cannot be equal in our own land.

As the law says no, we can respond only with yes. Yes, we can live as if we are married, we have done it. Yes, we can build a family, we are doing it; and yes, we deserve equality from a government we elect, and that we equally pay for.

We don’t yet live in the Promised Land, but by God we’ve seen it. We can move that mountain and we can have what is ours and it can start in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday, 17^th March. Let us not come back from the brink of equality as other places fall to separate but equal, let us not be scared or cynical as we listen to those who only hate, but let us say yes, yes we can have our Promised Land and yes we can have it here.

The Civil Partnership Act of 2004[2] was passed by Westminster for the whole of the UK. The Scottish Executive consented to Westminster legislating a Scottish section within the Act. When a Civil Partnership is registered, the law mandates that it is performed in a secular manner. Therefore gay people of faith whose religion may wish to celebrate their marriage are not allowed to have that done. Nor does the Act offer any provision for a ceremony to be held when the partnership is signed, as opposed to marriage where words have to be spoken as well as the register signed.

The Scottish Parliament was founded on the value of equality; that every citizen is entitled to the same rights as all others, and to be respected and protected by the government we elect. Although the Civil Partnership Act was and is groundbreaking, the status quo remains that there is one law for straight couples and another law for gay couples. The fact that they have equal status does not detract from the fact that they are separate and different.

If we truly believe in equality; if we actually want to live in a society where citizens are treated the same no matter what their sexuality, then allowing separate but equal to remain the law of the land simply cannot stand. The era of discrimination and segregation based on the colour of a persons’ skin began to be dismantled with the US Supreme Court ruling that “separate but equal is inherently unequal.”[3]

Yet more than 50 years later, we are still denied access to the basic institution of marriage in the UK. Instead we have been given something that although is considered equal under the law, is also considered separate. A gay couple that is legally married in Spain or South Africa has thier marriage changed to a civil partnership when they come to the UK. A Canadian couple went to the High Court in 2006, seeking to have their legally valid Canadian marriage recognised as such under UK law, just as heterosexual marriages are recognised no matter where they are performed in the world. Sir Mark Potter, the High Court Judge rejected their plea in Wilkinson v. Kitzinger[4]. In his judgement he stated how civil partnerships were indeed different from marriage, and that the government, in denying gay couples the right to marry, was engaging in a legitimate attempt to protect marriage and family life. He also effectively fined the couple £25,000 by making them pay the governments legal costs.

More recently in October 2008, Lord Bach, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice reaffirmed the British governments opposition to same sex marriage. He states that when the government passed the bill “we made a distinction in it and did not call single-sex partnerships marriage… it did not call those partnerships marriage, and that remains the Government’s policy.”[5]

That blatant inequality is incompatible with the values of the Scottish Parliament. It conflicts with the principles of Scottish law, and is contradictory to the inalienable rights of every citizen.

The definition of marriage is not static; it changes as our society does. For many centuries, marriage was a mere contract to better the position of one family or to remove rivalry with another. Our interpretation of what constitutes a relationship has progressed from a wife being considered little more than the property of her husband to a partnership of equals; and our society now stands at the point where it affords equal protection to couples regardless of gender. So what then are the reasons for allowing only marriage for straight couples and civil partnership for gay couples? If they are really the same, why are there two different laws and two different forms to fill in at the registrar’s office?

The word marriage evokes timeless values of love and commitment, and it radiates a clarity of status in society as well as a subtle collection of personal, social and spiritual meanings that two people are united in all aspects of their life. Marriage is the strongest word we have for a declaration of total love and commitment to one another; and to deny any person that opportunity is to deny the full measure of dignity and humanity that we are all endowed with.

Can our society not be one where two people decide what status is best for them? Straight couples who wish to get married already get the choice between having a religious or civil ceremony. But of course there are some straight couples who would balk at the thought of even entering into a civil marriage, and would perhaps prefer a civil partnership, free of some of the associations and imagery that marriage brings. Just as how there are gay couples, who embrace the concept of marriage, and wish to celebrate their love by entering into this ancient institution, be that as a civil ceremony or one conducted by a progressive religion.

By denying same sex couples the right to marry on the grounds that some religious groups are opposed to it, enshrines that particular religious dogma into law, and ignores the diversity of faith groups that exist who would willingly marry two people of the same sex. In terms of performing religious marriage, it must be up to that particular faith to decide who to marry, not any government or parliament. Our 21st century state must respect the pluralism of belief and the diversity of faith that exists in Britain.

This petition is but one small step in the road to full equality and participation in every aspect of society. As we have seen from the battles over same sex marriage in the United States, there are those who will spend all they can and will fight to the very last to prevent gay couples being married. This does not mean we should run from the fight. We should not be afraid of standing up for what we believe in just because someone else is preparing to knock us down. And we should never be willing to compromise on our fundamental values, on our basic human rights or on our belief in the morality of equality.

This makes it incumbent on all of us who wish to live in a more equal world that we do not let someone else fight for a right we wish to enjoy. This is not the LGBT Networks campaign for marriage equality, this is simply a petition we thought was a good idea.

The campaign must come from all of us; from the group of friends who debate amongst themselves whether they would really be happy with a civil partnership; from the young person who isn’t happy to accept she is growing up in a country that wont afford her the same rights enjoyed by others; and from the happy couple who go down to the registry office, and instead of asking for civil partnership documents, demand that they be allowed to marry.

Some will say that there are more important things to do, and in some ways that’s true. But we can do more than one thing at a time. Putting your name to a petition or starting a conversation doesn’t detract from anything else that needs done.

But change doesn’t just happen. If we want it, we have to act like it. We have to stand up to those that say marriage should only be for straight people, or that civil partnerships are enough for us or don’t rock the boat to much in case some people don’t agree. Of course there are going to be people who are against this, but we should never shrink from the fight just because we might get hit.

In 2009, the 40^th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, I think about those courageous individuals who fought hand to hand with the police, to assert their right to exist, to be themselves openly and to be with the people they love, free from intimidation and harassment. Their legacy is not the laws that favour us, but our desire, our passion, and our right to be equal.

Nick Henderson

Director, LGBT Network
9/1/09

It seems to take a bandwagon as big as Russell Brand and Jonathan for the BBC to acknowledge that has done anything wrong.

But this ignores the bigger issue. I think that with the multitude of programmes that are broadcast over a sprawling network as large as the BBC that is so closely related to British society, there are bound to be incidents where we as a community are offended or attacked, still so pervasive in British society.

But within a network as sprawling and as diverse as the BBC, there is no space for the gay community to defend itself against such attacks, or use the media as a way to educate people about the LGBT community and reinforce that such attacks are not acceptable.

If there was a racial slur made against an Asian person on a mainstream BBC programme, there would rightly be indignation within the Asian community, with space for debate provided by the Asian media, such as the BBC Asian Network.

I think it’s a great thing to have such diversity on the BBC. It is funded by pretty much everyone in the UK, and therefore communities within Britain deserve space and time on our national broadcaster to discuss and debate issues important to the community, to develop the communities’ culture and promote new trends and different ideas.

How much do you think the BBC spends on programmes directed at the LGBT community? Well, they wouldn’t tell me when I asked, but they were more than happy to tell me that they were “determined to portray fully-rounded gay & lesbian ‘normalised’ characters in our television output.”[3]

I might have been also interested, according to this freedom of information response, to know that there are gay people on Doctors, Dog Borstal, and there was an entire documentary on BBC Three one time, called. The Trouble With Gay Men.[4]

It is to the BBC’s credit that they include openly gay characters (although there is less good to be said about the inclusion of Lesbian, Bisexual or Transgender people) on a few of their mainstream shows, but I fail to see how that significantly benefits the gay community, when it’s still just a token gay in a programme that is overwhelmingly heterosexist. It can even be detrimental in trying to build a gay culture that LGBT characters are portrayed with everyone around them being so cool with their sexuality that to the casual straight viewer, it appears that there are no real problems facing the community anymore.

One must only glance a few times a week at websites such as pinknews.co.uk to see that there are dozens of stories every day that are of supreme interest to gay people, but maybe not to anyone else.

What we lack in Britain is the space to discuss them, to debate and to challenge British society and our own community.

There is not the time on mainstream BBC to look at the range of issues that affect us in depth, and to give our culture and our history the proper investigations and debate that it so sorely deserves.

There lacks the opportunities for LGBT people to have programmes that deal with LGBT issues or are really only of interest to the LGBT community to have that reach the target audience through the mass media.

When a homophobic slur is made on a mainstream programme, there is nowhere for us to talk about it as a community; to look at the issues behind what was said, or to debate our place in British society.

According to research carried out by Stonewall, LGBT people provide around £200 million[5] of the license fee, and in return we are subject to homophobic abuse on a weekly basis, and confronted by a wall of silence when we complain to the BBC.

To start with, there needs to be LGBT dedicated programming across the vast array of the BBC network. Programmes that are aimed at the gay community and deal with issues important to us, and that should encourage LGBT people themselves to be involved in the programme at all stages of development. For example, a daily radio talk shows that discusses LGBT news and current events, that can ask the tough questions to politicians and public figures on issues that are important to us. Or a weekly TV show that gives a roundup of gay entertainment, music, movies and books, and space for up and coming LGBT stars to make their name.

Now I am not a TV producer, but there are plenty of LGBT people who are or who have better ideas than this, and we are entitled to have the BBC listen to us. Eventually I want to see a digital TV and radio station that provides the broad range of programming that our community deserves. This is not about segregation of news or entertainment, but it is about providing a space in British society for LGBT people to have their say, a say that is long overdue.

Nick Henderson
Director, LGBT Network
6/1/09