GALHA plays a part in the campaign to combat prejudice and discrimination against lesbians and gay men and to achieve their complete legal equality with heterosexuals. It also takes up issues of concern to Humanists. It lobbies MPs, the media and others; and makes submissions to government committees and responds to consultative documents concerning lesbian/gay and Humanist rights. It takes part in demonstrations and rallies concerning these rights.
GALHA is an integral part of the British Humanist movement and has close links with other organisations in it. These include the British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society, which have each consistently backed homosexual law reform and supported making the age of sexual consent for gay men equal to that for heterosexuals. GALHA is represented on the Humanist Forum (a liaison committee) and it co-sponsors Humanist functions.
GALHA membership is open to all lesbians, gay men and bisexuals who broadly subscribe to the Humanist outlook and are concerned about lesbian and gay rights. It is also open to any heterosexual Humanists wishing to offer their moral and financial support.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the execution of gay people continues, even as we remember the first anniversary of those shocking photos of the teenagers publicly hanged last year. In Iraq, things have gone from bad, to worse, to calamitous! Religious militia are terrorising the LGBT community. Summary executions in the streets are now commonplace as the theocrats take charge.
In Eastern Europe, neo-Nazis, nationalists and religious leaders continue their onslaught against gay citizens. We report from both Moscow and Riga – cities which have tried to outdo Warsaw in their aggressive response to Gay Pride.
In the UK, the ominous term ‘faith crime’ is now in the media. It’s a phrase that we thought had gone out with Torquemada, but it’s back! The Gay Police Association are being investigated after evangelical Christian groups complained that their advert (see back cover) highlighting the fact that there has been a 74% rise in religiously motivated homophobic hate crimes was ‘inciting hatred’.
Meanwhile, a High Court judge has denied a lesbian couple – legally married in Canada in 2003 – recognition of their marriage under English law. His judgement, prattling on about the cherished institution of marriage being about the raising of children, read like a Christian Institute leaflet.
To make matters worse, we may soon be getting US-style televangelists on our screens, if the religious lobby gets its way. Soon we’ll be blamed for mad cow disease, seasonal flooding and the Queen’s bad knee...
Do remember the GALHA AGM and annual get-together is on the weekend of 9 September in Canterbury. We hope to see you there, so book now!
Anyhoo – as the say – we hope you’re having a fantastic summer!
As you can see from the cover, this issue highlights the current crisis in Eastern Europe and Russia in particular, where there has been an almighty antigay backlash, sponsored primarily by the homophobic religious establishment of all three major faiths. Priests, Rabbis and Mullahs are united around their hatred of lesbians and gays. Most dangerously, they appear to be using right-wing skinhead gangs as their muscle.
Europe is in crisis, and increasingly we cannot rely on our own so-called liberal governments to intervene. Very little decisive action appears to be taken against Poland, recently admitted to the EU, but with antigay scenes playing out as carbon copies of the Russian experience. In The Netherlands, increasing isolationism and anti-immigrant feeling – the true legacy of the late Pim Fortuyn – has placed LGBT asylum seekers in terrible peril. A move, sponsored by Fortuyn’s party to have gay Iranians sent back to face torture and execution was only narrowly averted.
Our own government’s record is little better. The International Day Against Homophobia has never been more relevant.
Now, when I say values, I don't mean values in the pejorative sense used by the loony religious right. No, this isn't a word that should be swung around like a blunt instrument or as a coverall for prejudice and bigotry. When we say values, we mean those essential things that provide humans with life and liberty: respect for humanity, human rights, freedoms of speech, association and inquiry, and – lest we forget – happiness. These are the things that humanists have always stood up for, lived for and, in many cases, died for.
It may seem over-dramatic, but we scarcely need reminding that these values are constantly under attack from those who would rather humanity ploughed a different furrow (or rather hacked another trench). All around the world, there are religious groups demanding that society – whether it likes it or not – live by arbitrary, non-sensical rules 'revealed' to them by the psychotic episodes they call 'divine inspiration'.
It's not just the Taliban types in Afganistan or exploiting the chaos in Iraq. It is the hard-right that advise President Bush in the USA or the potty Stephen Green harassing broadcasters and theatre producers in the UK too.
But without further ado, welcome to Gay Humanist Quarterly! And oh, merry Winterval!