The world has come a very long way in the last fifty years: 'alternative sexualities' are now far less reviled and criticism of these lifestyles is far less acceptable that it has been for a long time in the past. There is still, however, some way to go, and this page seeks to outline some of the rights still being campaigned for and what you can do to help the cause.

Marriage

For many homosexuals marriage is an institution still denied to them - at the moment, only six countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Canada and South Africa) offer marriage to gay couples, along with the US states of Massachusetts and Connecticut¹. Several other nations (including the United Kingdom) and regions offer civil partnerships or other unions which provide legal spouse status equivalent to that in civil marriage to gay couples and have been considered as 'gay marriages' in all but name (as well as attracting predominately positive media attention). While many of these civil unions have been especially tailored for gay couples, they are still considered legally separate to 'standard' heterosexual marriages² and not all civil unions (especially those which don't apply throughout an entire nation) guarantee all the same rights regarding e.g. pensions, next-of-kin status.

This unfair and discriminatory attitude can be considered to be a lasting mark of the hostility of certain religions towards homosexuals - denying them the possibility of expressing their love in a way that most religions preach as an important and wonderful union. That's not to say that all religions are against gay marriage: the Reform Synagogues of America and the Unitarian Universalism series of churches are among the few major religious institutions that universally support same-sex marriages, while many liberal and modern churches are willing to bless gay couples if not marry them.

Ages of Consent

In many countries the age of consent for same-sex relationships is different from that for heterosexual relationships (and frequently lesbians are ignored altogether when it comes to ages of consent!). Age of consent data can be found here.

In the UK the age of consent for homosexuals was originally 21, compared to 16 for heterosexuals, after the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed for England and Wales to decriminalise homosexuality and similar laws were passed for Scotland and Northern Ireland in 1980 and 1982 respectively. Despite an attempt by the Conservative MP Edwina Currie in 1994 to reduce this age of consent to 16, it was reduced down to 18 by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. After the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 1997 that having unequal ages for consent for gay and straight people was discriminatory, the recently elected Labour government attempted to lower the gay age of consent to 16. After two successive defeats in the House of Lords, the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 was passed using the Parliament Act in November 2000: see here for a BBC news article on the subject. All forms of sex now have 16 as the age of consent, except in Gibraltar where the age of consent for male-male gay sex is still at 18³.

In the United States, while many states had repealed their laws against sodomy (i.e. non-procreative sex) up until 2003, there were still 13 states which officially banned these acts, either for all couples or just between gay men and women. However, the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas declared all sodomy laws in those thirteen states to be invalid and implied that ages of consent for both gay and straight sex should be equal. While each state has its own age of consent, the maximum age has been set at 18, although it is still illegal for US military personnel.

The Military

Whilst the issue seems to always be mysteriously forgotten when it came to conscription and sending teenagers to die, there are many instances of bans on gays in the military. There is a large movement to allow homosexuals to fight (and die) for their country. In the case of the UK's armed forces, the European Commission ruled that such a ban was an infringement on human rights and the ban was subsequently removed in 2000, with homosexuals now allowed to fight in the British Army, Navy and Royal Air Force. They now even take to recruiting in gay lifestyle magazines and at Gay Pride events!

This is in stark contrast to the policy currently applied by the US Military - there is a ban on homosexuality and a policy of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is in force, meaning that gay men and women serving in the United States' armed forces cannot be open about their sexual orientation. Homosexuality is allegedly the most common reason for US soldiers being discharged from the army while on duty, including in combative zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq, even if they are vital for the Army's actions. This situation may be able to change, however: President Barack Obama promised during his election campaign to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and in May 2010 the US House of Representatives approved an appeal after completion of a Department of Defense report into military effectiveness. Subject to a Senate vote, the policy could be gone in 2011.

Blood Donation

Many are unaware of the discriminatory processes of blood donation schemes. Many such schemes ban gay men from donating blood (often for life), regardless of whether they engage in penetrative sex or not, or even if they have had just one instance of oral or anal sex with another man. Considering that (1) a significant proportion of gay men choose not to participate in high risk practices, such as anal sex, (2) gay men are often more aware of the possible consequences of unprotected sex and thus are far more careful, and (3) prostitutes and drug users tend to be banned for only a year after being involved in these practices, a life ban seems particularly ridiculous.

Insurance companies

Many insurance companies use lifestyle questions for life insurance, life assurance, pensions, etc. Gay men are particularly discriminated against and are often categorised as high risk. A blood test is also usually required to ascertain HIV status.

In 2004, the Association of British Insurers decided to reword its questions concerning sexual health so as not to ascertain sexual orientation, to not base indications of HIV risk on particular occupations (e.g. cabin crew, ballet dancer or hairdresser) and to remove other intrusive questions, thus reducing discrimination against gay men. However, there are a number of insurance companies which consider Civil Partners as single people for assessing HIV risk due to a lack of data regarding the sexual behaviour of 'married' gay couples.

Sex Education (or lack of it)

Both the UK and the United States are reported as having some of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies and (most worryingly) sexually transmitted infections (STIs), such as chlamydia, gonorrhoea and HIV, in the Western world. These trends have been attributed to a lack of sex education received by young people, particularly from schools.

In England and Wales, sex education mainly concentrates on the reproductive system, foetal development and physical and emotional changes during adolescence - these lessons are not compulsory (parents can prevent their children from participating), nor is providing advice on safer sex practices and contraception. While Scotland does include information on contraception and STIs in its main sex education programme, there is an alternative for religious schools which only promotes abstinence from sex. It has been argued by conservatives that teaching about contraception at an early age would promote promiscuity among teenagers, although schemes doing just that in countries such as the Netherlands show that the opposite is true.

In the United States, there is again no entirely consistent programme for sex education in schools and while a majority of schools offer 'comprehensive' sex education, about a third of schools teach a programme that only teaches children to abstain from sex until marriage and does not include any information on contraceptives. This is a particularly controversial topic, given that the federal government has attempted over the last decade to encourage abstinence-only sex education by providing over $1 billion in selective funding. Various studies have also shown that abstinence-only education has had no effect on delaying when teenagers first have sex compared to other forms.

In both cases, there is one particular concern for the Lesbigay community - very rarely do sex education programmes in the UK or US cover homosexuality and provide the information that gay and bi men and women need on contraception or reducing the risk of obtaining STIs. This is particularly a problem with abstinence-only sex education programmes, which marginalise LGBT people due to the lack of marriage as a viable option. Many gay rights groups are campaigning for more consistent, more informative sex education starting at an early age for both lesbigay and straight pupils to improve sexual health.

What can we do?

There are, happily, a number of things that you can do to promote equality for all, regardless of sexuality, and this page seeks to outline just a few of the things you can do. As with the whole of M2M2 I welcome any new ideas, and good suggestions of other constructive things that can be done will be added to this page - just mention them in the forum below.

Write to your MP

Yes, everyone says it, but one of the main arguments in favour of constituency democracy is that you have a single person who is supposed to represent your views to the House of Commons. Write to your MP and tell them how you feel about any of the above issues - and let me know what reply you get. I'll be happy to put up the text of any such reply, so that people can tell for themselves which are the goodies and which are the baddies.

You might even like to send your MP an email. This is now incredibly easy - just go to WriteToThem.com, where you can type in and send an email to your MP (please don't offend others by wasting their time, faxing an MP for another constituency). It will even tell you which your MP is, if you don't know!

Tell others

It may sound obvious, but ignorance is a huge problem with all these issues. Many people don't realise what is going on, and which minority activists are swaying these votes against reasonable, liberal, unbigoted views. Spread the word, and prevent them being infected by the homophobic propaganda (that is so much more prevalent than the homosexual propaganda we keep hearing about!).