Stephen Fry: Shamelessly Bourgeois

When asked his response to those in the LGBT community who considered marriage an “antiquated, oppressive” institution, to be overthrown rather than joined, Fry said he was aware of how the campaign for marriage equality in Britain had taken on a “very distinctive, anti-bourgeois, anti-patriarchal sort of attitude” and become tied to a “great raft of issues that you could feel was all somehow opposed to the status quo and the establishment”.

[This is garbled, Fry namechecks the GLF and - bizarrely - the distinctly non-radical Campaign For Homosexual Equality, and meant lesbians and gay men who oppose marriage, obvs. 'The great raft of issues' embraced include 'feminism... Ban The Bomb'! 16 mins in].

However, “the fact that gay people have revealed themselves, some of them like myself, to be shamelessly bourgeois – I apologise to those who thought I’ve sold out but I’m afraid I never really bought in.”

Gaurdian online on this Australian TV interview for ABC News.

He also retells his favourite story - told by a friend of a friend, a royal courtier, no less - about Her Maj The Queen enthusiastically signing in the same-sex marriage bill.

Though I stand to be corrected by Mr Fry's infinite wisdom and inside knowledge, again, this is utter nonsense, she did not literally sign it, but it's clearly a comforting delusion for this arselicker by appointment to the House Of Windsor.

Alan Wakeman: 1936-2015

'Reluctant revolutionary', unreconstructed hippy, Sohovian, teacher, translator, musician, key member of London GLF, and a founder of Gay Sweatshop.

Check out his groovy website!

David McLellan: Ardent Gay Stalinst

Andrew Burgin, Facebook.

As well as working at Housmans bookshop he was one of the original Gay Liberation Front members in the 1970s, and also co-founded Gay Switchboard, a phone line service that provided advice and support for people coming out - both groups had offices at 5 Caledonian Road, and both were groundbreaking in the work that they did.

Max had a strong personality with a cheeky and provocative streak - a unique and outspoken man who couldn't fail to make an impression on those he met. Truly he was one of a kind. (via Housmans)

Michael Mason: 1947-2015

Michael Mason, who has died aged 67, was the news editor of Gay News who went on to co-found and edit the pioneering London paper Capital Gay and was a leading figure in the campaign for homosexual law reform.

As the product of a leading public school and Oxford, Michael Mason was not the first upper-middle-class man to find that his sexual preferences tended towards his own sex. But whereas most contemporaries discreetly pursued their predilections behind a respectable facade, Mason was baffled that there might be anything to be ashamed of. He took delight in declaring his club as the Sadie Maisie, whose dress code was not jacket-and-tie, but denim, leather or rubber...

From the Daily Telegraph obituary by Simon Edge. 

The beginning of a fitting tribute to a man who was part of the Gay Liberation Front, news editor on Gay News, and went on to publish Capital Gay, a weekly London newspaper that worked on the assumption its readers had hearts and brains.

Here are some similarly fulsome tributes paid by the gay media of today...

I jest, of course.

Michael Mason, missed in so many ways.

x

Letter Of The Week: Brighton Pride

GScene.

The Angry Brigade: Where Are They Now?

There is an interview with John Barker in today's Guardian.
Once a member of Britain's most notorious anarchist terrorist cell, the Angry Brigade, he and five comrades were convicted of a series of bombings and sentenced to ten years in prison in 1972.
We learn John is 'angrier than ever', but now leads a quiet life, working as a freelance indexer of books and spending most of his time in Greece.

But this led Fagburn to wonder whatever happened to the other angry brigadiers?

Above we see a poster in support of the Stoke Newington 8 - as the arrested members were known during their trial.
Yes, I know there are nine of them, but that's crazed anarchists for you.
That's John, bottom right.

In the centre is a certain Angela Weir, who was not convicted, so what happened to her?
You may know her better as Angela Mason, chair of Stonewall between 1992 and 2002.
Rather coyly, she now refuses to discuss her days as an angry young woman.
Awarded a CBE in 2007, Angie is currently chair of the Fawcett Society, an adviser to some bizarro government quango, and a Labour councillor in Camden.
Didn't she do well!

Next Week: Stuart Christie.

PS You may also enjoy the essay, Carnival Of The Oppressed: The Angry Brigade and the Gay Liberation Front by Lucy Robinson.

Brixton Fairies: Made Possible By Squatting

Thanks to Davey. x

Gay Liberation Front: Manifesto

The Gay Liberation Front Manifesto was a revolution in consciousness when it was published in London in 1971, and it remains revolutionary today. It offers a radical critique of sexism and what we now call homophobia; as well as a pioneering agenda for social and personal transformation...

Peter Tatchell chooses the 1971 Gay Liberation Front Manifesto for The Guardian series A Book That Changed Me.
Best line: "I did not write the manifesto, but..."
The Guardian helpfully provide a link to the revised 1978 edition.
D'oh!

You can read the original GLF manifesto here.

PS Peter Tatchell Irony Klaxon!!!

#Mugabe started out as a good leader but has become corrupted. He's gone from being a liberation hero to a tyrant. #Zimbabwe #Harare #Africa
— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) August 6, 2013

Thought For The Day: April 12th 1971

"So what makes you think heterosexual is so normal? I'm glad I'm homosexual - if I had the chance to be born again I'd choose to be homosexual..."
"No, no, I mean it. I'm glad I have nothing to do with the straight male thing suppressing women. Look I went to a psychiatrist once, don't we all. They've got past saying you're sinful, now they say you're sick. But to me, anyone who doesn't say being a homosexual is OK, well he's no good to me. What we're trying to do here is not only make people like you feel that being gay is good. We want to set up a whole new scene for gay people. Because they said we were criminals or ill our sex was furtive, scuffles in public lavatories, cruising on some heath, a quick grope wherever we could find it. That's not what homosexual means, only what society has made it mean. They fill us with self-hate, they make our lives intolerable and then they point the finger."

An unnamed boy in a bar quoted in Gay Is The Word by Jill Tweedie.
Reprinted today in The Guardian's From The Archive section.
Several things may strike a modern reader; how she contrasts the furtive and oppressive UK with the seemingly gay utopias of Arab countries, such as Morocco.
And how homosexuality is presented as an almost existential ideological challenge to the dominant culture.
"Gay Lib is in the business of rocking the boat. Though they want legislative and attitude changes these young homosexuals, by their very acceptance of the normality of homosexuality, challenge the status quo, the dedicated heterosexuality of the normal man and woman which creates the family unit, foundation stone of the capitalist system. Gay Lib does not plead for the right of homosexuals to marry. Gay Lib questions marriage.
"And they are beautiful to see..."
Happy times.

• If you're interested in "this sort of thing" have a look at the website of the Lesbian And Gay News Media Archive, who are currently putting their collection of newspaper cuttings online. It would make for a fascinating book, I think.

The Real Brighton Pride: Beneath The Pavement, The Beach!

"I certainly will not be going to anything the so-called 'Official Pride' have miserably mismanaged this year...
"I've met friends in the street who have said that they intend to help take over the whole of the beach eastwards of the Palace Pier, all the way to the Marina this year with our fabulous rainbow flag stretched out across the shingle for as far as it can go.
"We can entertain ourselves as we always did at the end of the original Gay Pride marches in London in the early 1970s. We can party all day long and if everyone tunes into the same radio station we can have our music too. We can feed ourselves by bringing our own picnic foods. We can pee in the sea if necessary. We do that anyway.
"We don't have to use the beach; there are dozens of local parks we can also use for local picnics. We never had to ask anyone's permission in the 1970s when we still illegal, so why should we 40 years later...
"We can also reclaim some of our colourful but peacefully anarchic roots.
"Many of our lovers and friends have died since the UK's initial eruption of gay sensibilities, from the LSE four decades ago. Let's celebrate their lives and sacrifices this year with one fabulous, unscripted, uncensored, glorious day out on our very beaches and smaller parks.
"Reclaim our history, give those wonderful younger gays a a different kind of day out to remember...
"At the age of 70 I look forward to many more gay and proud moments here in this lovely city of Brighton.
"Lots of out and proud gay love to everyone."

Michael James.
Letter to Gscene magazine, May 2011.

Excellent stuff.
I hope people will join Michael James in turning their backs on the "official" Brighton Pride - now it has turned its back on the very principles on which Gay Pride was founded.
Fuck 'em - you don't need permission for anything.
On the weekend of Saturday August 13th, let's take over our gay village in Kemptown, our parks, our beach, and our city.
And let's reclaim our Pride.
Nothing can stop us!