The Gay Rights Movement – A New BBC Archive

The latest collection on the BBC archive website charts the corporation’s coverage of gay rights issues. There are thirty segments from both radio and television that range from news reports to discussion programmes and documentaries.

It is fun to watch the Conservative MP Ray Mawby out of his depth and spouting off the sort of nonsense that the Daily Mail likes to scare its readership with: the dangers of promoting homosexuality, the need to protect children from homosexual predators, and the idea that if you allow homosexuality you may as well endorse incest.

Is Attitude’s “Issues Issue” helpful in any way at all?

Polari‘s editor takes exception to how Attitude tackles the issue of gay men and mental health in a publication that endorses much of the behaviour it criticises.

“Attitude’s approach to mental health issues is a problem because it is not about living your life, but instead about adopting an alternative lifestyle defined by bullet points. The devil is not in the detail but in the overall message.”

Jane Hilton’s Dead Eagle Trail photographs the 21st century cowboy.

The celebrated photographer Jane Hilton talks about her exhibition and book Dead Eagle Trail: America’s Twenty-First Century Cowboys, and the strong hold that the myth of the cowboy maintains over the American imagination.

“I mistakenly mentioned Brokeback Mountain once. That had a very interesting reaction,” she said with a mischievous laugh. “At first they denied knowledge of it, then one of them said, ‘I think I know what you mean. No, we won’t be seeing that’.”

What exactly was Christmas before Christians co-opted it?

The Christmas story is the result of a cynical exercise by Christian apologists, and is a cornerstone in The Greatest Spin Ever Spun.

“It was not established until 375 AD that the birth of Christ occurred on December 25. It was through the Church of Antioch that Christianity was organised as a religion. The Roman Constantine inaugurated this change by adopting Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire.”

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The 1980s backlash: the 25th anniversary of the raid on Gay’s the Word bookshop

On April 10, 1984, ‘Operation Tiger’ went into effect. Customs and Excise officers walked into Gay’s the Word bookshop in London, told its customers to leave, and seized all imported titles.

At that time, Gay’s the Word was the only bookshop in the UK in which one could buy Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. Maupin’s books were amongst those seized, as were titles by Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams.

The significance of the pan-sexual conqueror.

2335 years ago Alexander the Great, King Alexander III of Macedon, died having forged an empire that extended from Greece to Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia and northwestern India.

“The subject of Alexander’s sexuality is unavoidable. In the Classical and Hellenistic Ages, sexuality was far more fluid than it is in Judaeo-Christian culture, to riot in understatement.”

Timeline of 2009 LGBT Anniversaries, Part 1 of 4

In the forty years since the Stonewall riots, and the emergence of the gay liberation movement, a process of historical archaeology has been underway. Its aim has been to make the hidden past visible. This timeline of anniversaries is a look into what we now know of this hidden past, and also the revealed present.

529 AD, Justinian decreed that persons who engaged in homosexual sex were to be executed. He believed that homosexual activity was the chief cause of earthquakes.

Timeline of 2009 LGBT Anniversaries, Part 2 of 4

In the forty years since the Stonewall riots, and the emergence of the gay liberation movement, a process of historical archaeology has been underway. Its aim has been to make the hidden past visible. This timeline of anniversaries is a look into what we now know of this hidden past, and also the revealed present.

1924, The Society for Human Rights, the first homosexual rights organization in America, founded in Chicago by Henry Gerber.

Timeline of 2009 LGBT Anniversaries, Part 3 of 4

In the forty years since the Stonewall riots, and the emergence of the gay liberation movement, a process of historical archaeology has been underway. Its aim has been to make the hidden past visible. This timeline of anniversaries is a look into what we now know of this hidden past, and also the revealed present..

1969, The Stonewall Riots. In the early hours of June 28, police raided the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street. The patrons of the bar fought back.

Timeline of 2009 LGBT Anniversaries, Part 4 of 4

In the forty years since the Stonewall riots, and the emergence of the gay liberation movement, a process of historical archaeology has been underway. Its aim has been to make the hidden past visible. This timeline of anniversaries is a look into what we now know of this hidden past, and also the revealed present.

1994, Age of consent for gay men reduced in the UK from 21 to 18.