Celebrating Pride on LabourList

By Richard Lane

Tomorrow the streets of London will be filled with thousands of revelers celebrating the annual gay Pride march. Over half a million people are expected to join the festivities with politicians lining up to associate themselves with the event – even Boris Johnson sported a pink cowboy hat as he led the parade last year.

To celebrate London Pride, LabourList is being taken over by LGBT Labour for the next few days. I hope that we can use this time to reflect on the enormous amount that has been achieved over the past twelve years under this Labour Government.

Today in Britain we take for granted the tolerance and respect that the LGBT community largely enjoys. Legislation and public attitudes are unrecognisable from the institutional prejudice and discrimination that was inherited following 18 years of Conservative bigotry.

The Labour government’s achievements in giving legal equality to the LGBT community and shaping public attitudes is something we can all be unambiguously proud of. The list of accomplishments is long and wide ranging; the age of consent has been equalised, gay people can now serve openly in the military, civil partnerships, the right to adopt and the scrapping of the homophobic section 28.

But despite this remarkable progress we must remain mindful that there is still much to be done.

Across much of the world gay and lesbian people are still denied fundamental human rights. Only yesterday homosexuality was finally descriminalised in India, abolishing archaic legislation imposed by colonial Britain. In many other countries you can still be imprisoned, tortured or even executed based simply on your sexuality.

In Britain, hate crimes against LGBT people have continued to rise with a number of high profile murders of unimaginable brutality making national headlines. In schools, homophobic bullying continues to make life for many young people intolerable.

I hope that this weekend, as well as celebrating all that has been achieved, we can discuss some of these key issues and debate just what the role of gay activism will be in the coming years. With growing acceptance of LGBT people in everyday life, are Pride celebrations still relevant? How can we tackle homophobic bullying in schools? Are young gay people complacent about the discrimination still faced by many?

What is more, with most polls suggesting we may be less than a year away from a Conservative government, we should be asking David Cameron how his warm words would translate into action for the LGBT community.

We’ve got some great contributors lined up to discuss these issues (and many more!) and I hope that many of you will comment on the articles that have been written.

And if you feel like coming down and celebrating gay Pride then join LGBT Labour on the march or at our stall in Trafalgar Square!