Is the end of gay conceivable? Is gay 'just a phase', not for individuals but for society? Adam Knowles, Chair of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, argues that it could be, but not until the insight offered by queer culture has been taken up. He will present the Central London Humanist Group with an argument that a path toward this vision is available - and help you decide if it's impossible or inevitable. Mapping a broad historical view of gay from ignored to illegal through tolerated to integrated, this talk will outline some of the possibilities for the future and put the case for a modern conception of human sexuality. What happens is up to all of us: gay, straight or otherwise. The talk comes at a poignant time as we grieve the loss of David Kato, the gay human rights campaigner who was brutally murdered in Uganda. The homophobia displayed even at his own funeral acts as a reminder that the fight for equal human rights across the world is far from over.

1. From ignored to illegal,
tolerated to integrated
Adam Knowles
Chair of the Gay and
Lesbian Humanist Association
www.galha.org
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3. Illegal
There’s the almighty gavel of justice coming down on some matter, perhaps Oscar Wilde or
something.
Because homosexual acts were less ignored than homosexuality. A couple of random
examples are
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That itself reveals a focus on sex rather than relationships. In fact I’d call it an obsession, often
encouraged by the major world religions. Sodomy, sodomites, Sodom and Gomorrah. Gay
SEX is what the church wants to rail against. In the Church of England clergy are allowed to
be ‘gay’ so long as they’re ‘celibate’.
Well the trouble with ‘gay sex’ is that if you want to outlaw sodomy, go ahead but you’ll be
including a rather large number of straight people.
And what constitutes Lesbian sex, where do you draw a line between heavy petting as they
call it on those posters at swimming pools - and sex, if you want to legislate about it?
But the threat to the Church isn’t really gay sex. It’s gay love, gay relationships. The gay rights
movement is self-consciously more about love than it is about sex. It’s the idea that two guys
or two girls can embark upon a relationship, that love can be involved, and that no social
stigma will be attached to this. The obsession with ‘gay sex’ comes from elsewhere.
Gay subcultures arose in response. Gay language Polari, “"4%8%>=*%26*.%-4%28)%-''*58'%4(%?*%589
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What happened next?
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4. Tolerated
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5. Integrated
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issue and has done every year 1996 - 2010. If you read those you see a certain trajectory, an improvement. Today we
have metrosexuals, lipstick lesbians and ’straight-acting’ gays. A quick survey of anthropology shows a hugely diverse
range of relationships e.g. polygamy (many wives), polyamory (many husbands). In a short time, marriage has moved
from being primarily based on politics or practical reasons (power, wealth, children needed to sustain/work for the
family) to one based on love. What next? I hope I'm able to convey something of the feeling that this is an exciting
time of real change in the social integration of homosexuality.
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2(,'/:%;@4%-4B)%46*,*%8./%-4B)%,*8':%Humanist viewpoint. No 'higher purpose', no God-given meaning to our lives. We
generate meaning through the relationships we have with other people. Still a need for LGBT groups, still a need for a
Humanist approach to LGBT issues. For people to march at Pride. And if we don't, 'good men doing nothing', we'll see
things slide until there's another crises point. More to my point, if we DO succeed in our battle to rid the world of
homophobia, we remove the need for gay rights activists, for a separate gay identity and culture. Rather like a dentist
or a policeman, if we do our job perfectly, that is educate to prevent problems arising in the first place, we're working
towards being unnecessary. And rather like teeth or crowds, because humans are involved and a 'perfect job' is
impossible, there will always be a need for them. And that’s why GALHA, for instance, continues to exist. A')(%46*%2(,3
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6. www.galha.org
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