Date: Fri, 12 Aug 94 13:55:08 GMT From: stonewal@georgej.demon.co.uk (Support) ======================================================================== STONEWALL NEWS - August 1994 ======================================================================== 2 Greycoat Place, London, SW1P 1SB, UK. Tel: (071) 222-9007 Internet: stonewall@georgej.demon.co.uk Fax: (071) 222-0525 The following posting is a copy of the periodic newsletter, as sent out to Friends of Stonewall and volunteers. Stonewall Lobbying Group is an organisation aimed at lobbying the UK parliament for changes in the law. Any typographical errors are mine. If you have an queries, please contact Stonewall by post, or to stonewall@georgej.demon.co.uk. I will forward or respond as appropriate. A Stonewall volunteer undertakes all responses to mail queries, but please note that this may take a while. CONTENTS: 1. Rape reform at last 2. Hello mum! - former immigration officer released from jail 3. Mirror newspaper joins call for military ban to be scrapped 4. News in brief a. After Abigale's party b. Reading aloud c. Immigration group 5. From the Director's Desk 6. Assault on violence 7. Equality at work: a. Shop union commits to a fight for equality b. Importance of being earnest 8. God is a lesbian 9. London: Pride '94 Page One ----------------------- Rape reform won at last ----------------------- As we predicted in the last newsletter, right wing opponents of equality tried to use the House of Lords to put the clock back to 1967. They failed but we won a major reform of the rape law. The right's amendment to return the age of consent for gay men to 21 was rejected by 176 votes to 113. Other moves to criminalise all buggery, recriminalise in the military and, most bizarrely, to ban lesbians and gay men from having care or custody of a child, were thrown out after lobbying by Stonewall. But it was our amendment on male rape which produced the most dramatic result. After hard work by MPs, and Peers, rape will now be redefined to include forced buggery against men or women. All rape victims will have anonymity and the maximum sentence will be life, compared with the old penalty of 10 years for non-consenual buggery with a male over 16. In the courts, the prosecution must prove the defendant intended to rape and knew the victim did not consent. Non-consensual buggery with a man did not require evidence of intention. We also helped lift the ban on buggery for heterosexuals, which creates an equal age of consent for buggery of 18. These changes are important because they are non-discriminatory. The law will make no distinction between gay and straight and male rape can no longer be labelled a "gay crime". At first, the Government also seemed set to accept our amendment to reduce the penalty for sex by a man over 21 with one under 21, from five years to two. This would to bring it in line with similar heterosexual "under age" offences. But reform was blocked by objections from the Health Department which, despite producing no evidence, claimed men in authority might seduce 16-year-old boys. So what now? The age of consent issue made the headlines but it was never the whole story, or even most of it. Equality means comprehensive reform of the law on sexual offences and on a range of other issues: parenting, pensions, housing, immigration, equal rights at work and more. In Ireland the repeal of gross indecency and an equal age of consent were preceded by similar gender-neutral reform of rape law and the law of buggery. This is the direction in which we should be looking. For us, the legacy of the Bill will be setting an agenda which puts protection and equality, rather than discrimination and punishment, at the heart of laws on sex offences. Anya Palmer is Stonewall research manager. Douglas Slater is a co-founder. ---------- Hello mum! ---------- Former immigration officer, Mark Watson, was released on July 22 after serving part of a six-month sentence for illegally stamping his Brazilian lover's passport in an attempt to halt his deportation. Mark, 28, now plans to become a Stonewall volunteer, advising same sex couples on the continuing Home Office refusal to recognise our relation- ships. The Stonewall Immigration Group can be contacted on 071 222 9007. See p2. -------------------------------------------------- Mirror joins calls for military ban to be scrapped -------------------------------------------------- Editorials in The Daily Mirror and The Guardian joined an earlier leader in The Times in calling for an end to the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the military.. Worried MPs have also challenged the legality of the ban during debates on the Armed Forces Discipline Acts. After briefings from Stonewall they quizzed ministers on the costs of training people only to sack them later because they are lesbian or gay. Both Stonewall and the military group, Rank Outsiders, are pressing for a simple change in the "conduct" rules so they apply to heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. That's what has happened in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland! They have all lifted the ban on lesbians and gay men in their armed forces. Contact Rank Outsiders via Stonewall on 0-71 222 9007. Page two --------------------- News in brief --------------------- After ABIGALE's party Stonewall is set to twin with South Africa's Association of Bisexuals, Gays and Lesbians (ABIGALE). The group is working to defend the commitment to prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation contained in South Africa's interim constitution. Following the euphoria surrounding the country's first democratic elections, many fear the prohibition clause may be lost as part of a coalition compromise. ABIGALE is lobbying hard to keep the clause secure. Centred in the Western Cape Province, ABIGALE has 500 active supporters, mostly from the black townships of the Cape Peninsula. It has developed from a protest group to offer refuge, peer counselling, social and cultural events, education, training and safer sex advice mainly among young working-class blacks. Reading aloud The gross indecency laws which put Oscar Wilde behind bars 99 years ago remain on the statue book and are enforced. To mark the anniversary of the playwright's imprisonment, and to help fund Stonewall's continuing campaign for law reform and equality, an impressive line-up of stars will be reading The Ballad of Reading Gaol at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on October 9 with a live broadcast on Radio 3. The poem, published in 1897 under the pseudonym C33, Wilde's prison number, will be read by, among others, Mike Alfreds, Bette Bourne, Stephen Fry, Ian McKellen and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys. Tickets for the reading at 6.15pm are 10 from the box office on 081 741 2311. Immigration Group The Stonewall Immigration Group now has cross-party support from MPs, and has produced a major briefing paper, appeared repeatedly in the mainstream press and had immigration issues debated in parliament. Recent key judgements by the Immigration Appeals Tribunal advise the Home Office to treat our applications in a similar way to those from heterosexuals and pressure is building for a change in the policy. But the Home Secretary is stubornly refusing to accept the Tribunal's advice and has recently attempted to reinterpret the rules governing unmarried heterosexuals, who have until now been treated exactly as married couples, in an effort to justify refusing same-sex partners. In the past he has tried to insist same-sex couples could only stay together if they were "close relatives" and now he wants foreign same-sex partners to be classified as "visitors". The Group is working with solicitors and civil rights organisations and will be challenging the Secretary of State's increasingly desperate attempts to wriggle out of recognising our relationships. For more information, call the Group on 071 222 9007. ------------------------ >From the Director's Desk ------------------------ Social policy and the criminal law are based on assumptions about sexuality and gender and household relationships which now simply lack credibility. During the debate on the age of consent in the Lords, Lord Russell, a professor of history, said that for his students, it was as preposterous to argue for discrimination against gay men as it would be to argue heretics should be burnt at the stake. Attitudes are changing on all sides. One of the most exciting aspects of the demands we make is their relevance to many other sections within society: to young people, to women, and to heterosexuals who recognise that old sexual formulas do not meet their needs. Recognising male rape, and legalising buggery for men and women over 18, reverses the law's age-old fixation with procreative sex, penetration of the vagina by the penis, which has hitherto been defined as "good sex", and buggery and most other forms of both homosexual and heterosexual sex which are not procreative and which have been defined as "bad sex". This matters equally to gay men, lesbians and heterosexual women and men. Biology has been women's destiny. Being able to have sex without having children has been the most important advance for women this century. It seems to be that what many men find most offensive about lesbian mothers is not that there will be no biological father on the scene, biological fathers are frequently unavailable, whether on the scene or not (how much time can any MP give his child when he starts work at 3 pm and doesn't finish until after midnight?) but that conception is not by pen- etration. Why is it "selfish" for Martina to want a child, but not Stephen Green, the Conservative Family Campaign leader? Whose genes will most benefit the world? At Pride, my daughter spent most of the day with one of her best friends, also from a lesbian family. They love Pride and see it as a special day for them too. There is a quiet revolution going on here. And as Suzanne Moore said in The Guardian: "Would you tease Martina's offspring or would you ask for it's mother's autograph?" The paradox of our struggle is that we are different and Pride is our chance to celebrate it, but those very differences point to changes which can create a unity far beyond our own community. That wider unity is what is heartening about Peter Dunn's story of coming out at his union conference. But the other side of the coin is the continuing violence against lesbians and gay men which was highlighted by the attacks after Pride. I hope you will take a moment to fill in our violence survey. As always, it is your stories, and the strength of your testimony, which will be the most powerful weapon in making the case for change. Angela Mason Executive Director ------------------- Assault on violence ------------------- This summer, Stonewall is launching the first national study into violence and harassment against lesbians and gay men in the UK. We plan to use the results to put pressure on the police to monitor homophobic attacks and put extra resources into combating them. The findings will also help encourage the creation of support networks and help schools, local authorities and employers to prevent the harassment of lesbians and gay men. Although homophobic violence often goes unreported and unmonitored, the figures are still alarming. For example, there have been at least 155 homophobic-related murders of gay men in the past eight years. A 1991 survey by GALOP (the London policing group), showed nearly half of all lesbians questioned had been physically threatened, two thirds verbally abused. Most lesbians and gay men have a story to tell of violence, threats or abusive language used against them; for many, it started in school or in their own home. The queer bashings after Pride show there is no letting up. Now you have your chance to tell your story. Even if you have been lucky and have avoided homophobic violence or harassment, your experience can make an important contribution to the research. If you haven't received a survey form with your copy of Stonewall news call Stonewall on 071 222 9007. Completed forms should be returned as soon as possible. Results will be published next year. All the information you provide will be treated in the strictest confidence. Page three ---------------- Equality at work ---------------- SHOP UNION COMMITS TO A FIGHT FOR EQUALITY When Peter Dunn nervously stood up before 1,300 delegates at USDAW's annual Conference in Blackpool this year, the first line was enough to win him loud applause. He took a deep breath and declared: "I'm a gay man." Peter, 28, was speaking in support of a motion to radically extend the shop workers' union's commitment to lesbian and gay equality. Peter was the only out-gay at the conference prepared to speak. The motion, to fight homophobia at every level, had to be presented by a heterosexual man. In his moving speech,. Peter told delegates how he was completely out and proud at work at Blackpool's Tesco store. Yet despite being elected shop steward by his workmates , he'd still received death threats from homophobes who also daubed the lavatory walls accusing him of spreading Aids. "I had been so worried about my speech, yet they just kept clapping at the end," said Peter. "They passed the resolution unanimously and people were hugging and kissing me and shaking my hand. I know just passing a resolution isn't enough. We'll have to make sure action is taken but I'll be back next year if it isn't." IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Peter's story (above) shows how trade unions are taking on our issues, especially when we are prepared to be visible and to demand support for equality. Below are just some of the union groups Stonewall has been working with in recent months. Watch out too for Stonewall's first meeting at the TUC Annual Congress organised together with UNISON. But remember, winning equality is rarely plain sailing. Ian Davidson and Scott Love, the BBC "honeymoon couple" had to withstand a barrage of press sneers but still made the point that we are entitled to the same rights at work as everyone else. The BBC stood by its equality pledge by retaining leave for all partners. Perhaps the key "partnership" benefits are pensions. One Stonewall supporter in local government calculates his partner would lose a pension of 7,700 p.a. if he were to die now. At retirement this would go up to 9,600 p.a., index linked. If you have managed to negotiate a good pensions agreement or want to challenge your pension scheme, please let us know. We've been working with: Inland Revenue Staff Association. Federation of Lesbian and Gay Groups. Contact Brian Shaw on 061 829 8429. BIFU, the Banking,Insurance and Finance Union. Lesbian and Gay Network. Contact Christine or Hugh on 0222 224483 Banking, insurance and finance workers. National Communications Union/Union of Communication Workers. Lesbian and Gay Advisory Committee. Tel: 081 998 2981 Postal and telecom workers. Association Of University Teachers. Lesbian and Gay Network. Contact: Adrienne Aziz. Tel: 071 221 4370. NATFHE. Contact: Peter Purton. Tel: 071 388 2366. College teachers. UNISON. Contact Kursad Kahramanoglu. Tel: 071 388 2366. Local government, health service. MSF. Lesbian and Gays in MSF. Contact: Alison Dilly. Tel: 071 278 4150. Manufactuering, science and finance workers. ---------------- God is a lesbian ---------------- Stephen Cox of Hertfordshire won our summer raffle and a trip to New York in June for Stonewall 25, joining a million people on a march up Fifth Avenue. Here's the note he wrote us after his trip and the poem he was inspired to pen! "Dear Stonewall, This is just to thank you for the most incredible holiday. I used to think raffles were won by the mythical Mrs X of Wilmslow, rather than real people. For Stonewall at least, this isn't true. Stonewall 25 must have been the biggest demonstration of pride, visibility, commitment and community ever seen in the world. Plus, it took place in the most incredible city on earth! Everyone out there, enter the next Stonewall raffle. Real people do win! In pride, Stephen. Stonewall 25, Bigots nil! God is a lesbian. The New York Streets blazed with the rainbow, rippling heat, and resounded with cheers and a marching band. (Just why is First Avenue so hard on the feet?) We marched for the rights of monophiles and bi's, admiring the muscle on Manhattan thighs. The gyms of America were empty this week and I drooled in the street over good-looking guys. The British, the British, we're proud of the Queen. We practised her wave, it had to be seen, queening like royalty, four hours and a quarter, the Stonewall contingent was a mincing machine! The bigots were there. But they should repent of their bile and their anger, far better spent hating violence and hunger, the crimes of the world not fighting our love, and who we take to bed. We were a legion their numbers were small. I have to confess that we all had a ball. A million were marching in the blazing sun, marching for liberty, and justice for all. ----------------- London: Pride '94 ----------------- Thanks to Sheboom, the women drummers from Scotland who helped make our day when they joined us for this year's London Pride march. Stonewall helped organise the popular celebrity send off for the record-breaking June march. If you missed the march, you can catch Sheboom at the Equality Show at the Royal Albert Hall in October. -- This message was sent by: George Gardiner, Stonewall Volunteer E-mail to: stonewall@georgej.demon.co.uk or george@georgej.demon.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stonewall Lobbying Group - lobbying the UK Parliament for changes in the law. 2 Greycoat Place, London, SW1P 1SB. Tel: (071) 222-9007 Fax: (071) 222-0525 ==============================================================================