Section 28, a Thatcher-era law which prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality and was often used as a weapon against sex ed in British schools, has finally been repealed. Congratulations, British Dopers, on being rid of this ugly bit of legislation. It’s been a good couple of months for the Empire, what with Canada legalizing marriage and now this.
Cool!!
“Promotion” of homosexuality, huh? Hmmmm. Putting on my TVGuy Promo hat …
“TONIGHT on Fast Copy! Gay life! Gay Times! Great music and fun, FUN, FUN!! How do you get to join in? We’ll tell you about how to choose to be gay, from what kind of shoes to buy all the way to how to say ‘yes’ to that special someone! That’s all coming up next on FAST COPY!”
Lesbians get a toaster. What do gays get?
DD
After being assaulted by one of the roving homosexual conversion mobs (They are like Jehovah’s Witnesses, only dressed better*) and being converted, I got a lousy can opener.
I feel so ripped off.
Oh, I forgot the:
*[sup]no offense to any Jehovah’s Witnesses here, real or imagined[/sup]
That I had intended on appending to the end of my post.
Yes, it’s a lovely gesture on the part of Tony. Now if we could just persuade him and Home Secretary Adolf Blunkett to extend this liberal attitude to a few more areas, maybe this country wouldn’t feel quite so much like a one-party police state.
In further good news:
I’m impressed. They just elected their first transgendered public official a few months ago, a city counsellor in a Tokyo suburb.
At bloody last, good stuff!
To our US posters, this law was enacted and worded in such a vague manner, that it was impossible to work out what ‘promoting homosexuality’ comprised.
The result was that if a person confided in a teacher that they felt they might be gay, that teacher had the problem of trying to work out if any advice, apart from “Ignore it and go straight” could be interpreted as promoting homosexuality.
The law had very poor undefined boundaries, it lacked any compassion, and it led to young people with questions about their own sexuality with no answers and no-one to turn to for constructive advice.
The result was a number of attempted suicides and the propagation of a homophobic attitude among straight students.
Now if they could just do something about the Church of England…
Well they’re working at splitting it up as fast as possible. A few more gay bishops ought to do it.
[bbq hijack] fuck the CofE irishgirl, and fuck the catholic church too… i swear if i get one more priest/vicar treat me like a small child for not holding their beliefs… [/bbq hijack] 
I don’t know how the Catholic priests treat small children in the UK, but you’d best hope they don’t treat you like the priests here treat them.
[son of hijack] i just dont like the big religions at all… several of my ‘muslim’ (the " as they were not as devout as their parents would have liked) friends have been persecuted or even had attempts made on their lives because they arent so devout. used to know a catholic priest who would clip you round the ear for pretty much no reason (like breathing too loud), and the current vicaress (word?) at our local CofE is a total bitch. put it this way: if god exists, does he really want people like this preaching his faith?? [/son of hijack]
Here’s a charming story from the Hindustan Times: