Friday, November 05, 2004

Ask anyone and they'll tell you that life as a British gay man is much easier now than at any time in the last hundred years or so. Our co-workers no longer have the right to harass us while we go about our jobs; our school kids can now discover, at school, that it's alright to be gay; and, of course, we can't be sent to prison simply for expressing our love for one another.

So how can gay men get attacked on London's South Bank by a group of youths? How can they beat the life out of a man who had done nothing to deserve it? Nothing, that is, except be gay? If we have simply become part of the world-landscape why are gay men abused, beaten and even killed for simply being ourselves?

I've always had one hope. It's not that a cure would be found for cancer, HIV and AIDS; nor that there would be an overnight end to war and poverty; although all of those things would be great. My one hope was that someday very soon I would be able to walk down any street in Britain holding the hand of my boyfriend without fear of being abused, attached or insulted.

Now, like when David Copeland launched a one-man war on Soho's gay population in April 1999, it is very very clear that it'll be a very long time until my hope is ever realised.

Posted by Antz at 11:53 PM | Permalink | | |

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