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We've come a long way, baby! In 1972, I helped organise London's first Gay Pride parade. There were only 700 of us. We got lots of boos and no support from MPs.
How times change. This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of gay people, and their straight friends, will converge on central London for the annual Gay Pride parade.
We will be celebrating the fastest, most successful law reform movement in British history. In less than a decade, centuries of homophobic laws have been abolished.
The parade has the official backing of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, which was unthinkable even 15 years ago.
To coincide with tomorrow's celebrations, David Cameron has sent greetings to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
In an astonishing repudiation of the Thatcher-Major governments, he has apologised for past Conservative "mistakes" such as Section 28, which he says was an "offensive" law.
Not to be outdone, Gordon Brown is hosting a special Gay Pride reception at Downing Street and has endorsed the parade: "I'm very proud of all that this Government has achieved on LGBT rights these last 12 years. We won't ever give up on the fight for equality - we are marching with you every step of the way."
The Prime Minister can't attend for "security reasons" but he is sending his wife, Sarah Brown.
I will be marching with her at the head of the parade, with a placard urging an end to the ban on same-sex marriage.
I'm hoping Sarah can persuade her husband to end the ban. It is the right thing to do and it has popular support. A recent Times newspaper poll found that 61 per cent of the public support gay marriage, not just civil partnerships.
Sadly, marriage equality is not supported by any of the big three establishment parties, Labour, Tories or Lib-Dems. They endorse the system of sexual apartheid where gays are banned from civil marriage (homophobia) and straights are banned from civil partnerships (heterophobia).
This two-tiered system of partnership law is not equality. It perpetuates discrimination. The Greens are the only party committed to giving same-sex couples the right to marry.
In other policy areas, too, Gordon's Government is defending homophobic discrimination. The current Equality Bill is supposed to harmonise the many different equality laws, to create a level playing field. It doesn't.
While others are protected, gay people are denied protection against harassment - even in schools, where there is widespread bullying of LGBT pupils.
The Government has recently exempted religious schools from its action plan against homophobic bullying.
They will be allowed to teach sex and relationship education in accordance with their religious values which, in some cases, includes the belief that gay people are sinners, unnatural, immoral and inferior human beings. Such attitudes fuel the prejudice that leads to hate attacks.
The Government and the National Blood Service enforce a lifetime ban on blood donations from any man who has ever had oral or anal sex with another man - even if they had gay sex just once 40 years ago, even if they always have safe sex, and even if they test HIV negative.
This ban is nonsense. It is depriving the blood service - and NHS patients - of much needed donors at a time of shortages.
The LGBT community has made great progress. London is one of the world's most gay-friendly cities. But the battle for equality is unfinished.
It won't be finally won until all homophobic discrimination is ended. Over to you, Brown.
Reader views (9)
In the Bible, the Creator of All Mankind says this: 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. We can debate as much as we like, but He will have the final word.
- Jacqui, Guildford, UK
Of course, Gordon has nothing else to do at the moment...
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
Just how much do these people want??? I was always thought it was Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.
- Nelly, Hull
As a gay man and fellow foreigner, I say about Peter Thatchell: don't give the man a platform. He's a desperate self-publicist who has devoted his life to spinning his own 'rent a mob' activities. Unfortunately, a whole new generation of gay men is growing up believing Tatchell is their patron saint. So much for gay history. It's an insult to the real pioneers of gay rights who didn't rig votes to get a blue plaque on their council flats.
- Adrie Van Der Luijt, London, United Kingdom
"The battle for equality... won't be won until all homophobic discrimination is ended." Perpetual war, comrades - presumably conducted in the courts, at great expense to the taxpayers, and to individuals without the access to the PR available to the equality lobby, but who have the audacity to argue that there is a difference between 'marriage' and 'civil partnership'.
When you define 'homophobia' so widely and elastically, and invent more fantasy offences like 'heterophobia', this sounds like a recipe for job security in the UK's lucrative equality industry and their fellow travellers in the legal profession. Well done you, for creating more drain on the UK's wealth.
- Will Mall, Millwall
Andrew - the key difference with what you say is that you cannot choose your sexuality - you can choose your faith, people convert, fall out of their faith, change, become muslims, jews and christians all the time. People cannot decide to convert to being gay or straight. That's why it takes precendence.
What you are asking for is the right of organisations in which its members are 'choosing' to openly discriminate against people who have no control over their sexuality.
That is why it is wrong. But also you should factcheck - Catholic adoption agencies are still open. The Catholic church decided to threaten to punish needy children because of their choice to discriminate against gays and lesbians.
And the why do you think the 'agenda' of the millions of LGBT people in the UK is threatening to you - the only agenda item for gays and lesbians is to be treated equally as everyone else - to be afforded the same rights and protections as everyone else enjoys. That means in all aspects of life - you can't have partial equality.
- Stephen Markham, London, UK
Gay Pride has gone way beyond the notion of tolerance because, to the extent that certain religious or moral beliefs are in conflict with it, it insists that LGBT rights should be given precedence. The forced closure of Catholic adoption agencies is one example of how this intolerance by the LGBT rights movement, and politicians' willingness to pander to it, can have some very real adverse results.
As for Tatchell's disingenuous characterisation of "religious values", mainstream Christian teaching is that we are ALL sinners. I don't see how such teaching can fuel prejudice. More likely, it is the fanatical promulgation of the LGBT agenda, at the expense of others' rights, that sets the scene for conflict.
- Andrew, London
Why is it PC bullying to believe that everyone should be treated equally?
Currently, the government says gays and lesbians are seperate but equal. In others words it is a marriage apartheid. Gays can't use the term marriage and the reason is - the government and society are saying the word marriage is for heterosexuals only - gays need not apply.
We now have full gay marriage in Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Conneticut, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and even South Africa beats us!
If the government and society accept that gays and lesbians deserve all the protections that marriage offers - why not allow gays and lesbians have full, legally recognised marriages instead of continuing the legal apartheid that currently exists.
- Stephen Markham, London, UK
Does this PC bullying ever stop, the more you give the more they want, and god forbid you should disagree with anything these bully's say, if you don't agree with Gay Marriage you are homophobic, if you don't agree with mass immigration then you are a racist, if you do not agree with a Federal Europe you are a Little Englander or a Europhobe.
- Steve M, London
