Margaret Thatcher was no poster girl for gay rights

[Razgovory]

Oh, I think it was that suicide was less socially acceptable in the West at the time. Also, people had less free time to wallow.

We just had another tragic case of a teen committing suicide because of social media.  I think people had just as much time to wallow back then.  Its just that their time of wallowing now can entail extreme scrutiny by their peers.  Before stupid stuff we did was forgotten within days/hours.  Now it lives on within the internet forever.

Is it that rape thing?  Maybe Malthus can light some people on fire to make sure justice is done.

[crazy canuck]

Oh, I think it was that suicide was less socially acceptable in the West at the time. Also, people had less free time to wallow.

We just had another tragic case of a teen committing suicide because of social media.  I think people had just as much time to wallow back then.  Its just that their time of wallowing now can entail extreme scrutiny by their peers.  Before stupid stuff we did was forgotten within days/hours.  Now it lives on within the internet forever.

Is it that rape thing? 

yep.

Although I should add that is the tragedy I was referring to.  I did not mean to suggest that she had done something stupid online.  She was a victim of others doing stupid things online.

[Agelastus]

[Frak's sake, in the future I'll know not to work on two posts at once and then try to post both within 5 seconds of each other...just had to reconstruct this post after failing to wait the five seconds, then being told I'd already posted it after I retried, and then losing it totally. ]

I'm not going to argue that Section 28 wasn't unneccessary; after all, no prosecutions were attempted using it as a basis for all the years that it was on the Statute books.

However, there's a world of difference between "promoting" a lifestyle and providing support to a troubled teenager who needs to make a decision about his or her own sexuality; teachers should not be promoting any lifestyle over another, whether it be hetero-, homo- or whatever.

At least, there is a difference in the English language that I know. Hopefully the guidance councellors who were worth their pay actually understood that.

Unfortunately, I am relatively unaware without further research of how the debates in parliament and the press went at the time concerning the interpretation of the terms involved, to my slight embarassment now; at the time I considered the whole row overblown and a "storm in a teacup" and paid little attention after the initial volleys of claim and counter-claim.)

I can say I've never met anyone who claims to have been affected by Section 28, but since my circle of friends is relatively small that is not a statistically significant fact I'm afraid... 

Anyway, my point is that Thatcher seems to have considered that being "gay or straight" was a private issue ("behind closed doors" being perhaps a better term, and certainly fits her background and upbringing.) Hence she voted for decriminalising sodomy while also coming up with a clusterfuck like Section 28. She simply considered it yet another issue where the State should not get involved.

[Sheilbh]

Heh, reminds one of "Queers for Palestine". 

In fairness Tatchell's been beaten up at the Mosco Gay Pride and threatened because he keeps attending anti-Israel protests with signs saying 'Israel: STOP OPPRESSING PALESTINE. Palestine: STOP OPPRESSING GAYS.' Needless to say it's not the message the 'we're all Hezbullah now' crowd are going for

In addition he's been beaten up twice trying to perform a citizen's arrest on Robert Mugabe. He's very left-wing but difficult not to love. Having said that he's around Morrissey level in terms of his opinion of Thatcher.

I think the article's a bit slippery. As I say Section 28 is indefensible. But Thatcher's government had probably the best response to AIDS in the western world and compared to Reagan, especially, it's something they deserve a lot of credit for.

Whether she's a gay icon is another issue altogether. I can see it. She often dressed like a sort-of suburban drag queen (think Dame Edna) and the hair and the voice and the things she used to say ('we are a grandmother!') were very high camp.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I like and respect Tatchell a lot, he is also an irritating prat, life can be so complicated sometimes 

[Richard Hakluyt]

The poster campaign mentioned in the article in the op btw..................like Brazen I cannot remember it, yet I was living in London at the time (Bermondsey) and my route to work took me past many billboards. I think it may be fictional.