For the forces against us are now really powerful and sophisticated - and committed in their careers to constant prosecution to the Nth - in a way that didn't happen before. These forces include large charities - NSPCC would be one: - and specialist police units. The use of the dreadful "recovered memory syndrome" And of course most juries and public opinion says now gays are legal - we're not dealing with gays: we're dealing with 'abuse' and most gays say - these cases are now no concern of theirs.
The out gays are enjoying their freedoms - well - solidarity, never very strong in the gay movement, has usually abandoned the poor buggers we befriend. Usually - not always - the Bolton seven would be an exception. We brought that case to public view, stiffened the defendants to plead not guilty, and had the defendants stoutly defended and rallied gay comrades to demonstrate and after conviction had the lads (6 of the 7) push for appeal to Europe - AND WON. Ray afterwards write and fronted the Channel Four doco on the whole sad business. But usually cases we befriend are abandoned by their friends, and by the 'gay movement' and we visit men in prison left bereft of hope. And if it's happening in our small district of Lancashire it must be happening all over the country? Sadly we conclude that in many ways male homosexuality is worse off now than it was.
Of course prison may not soon be handed down - but there may be worse things than prison. Some of the orders we have seen given out by magistrates are horrendous. It's a minefield. We are old - others may not be - and there are cases that need monitoring to present arguments to try to change things.
Allan created CHE and it grew in the 1960's - before the Stonewall riots happened - into a great organisation politically and socially - though headquartered in Manchester, like the Co-op, it had political cells and social groups in all parts of London, in all our great provincial cities and in many smaller English towns. It slipped in significance in the 1980's because - well, a lot of anti-gay laws were dropped, campaigns if you like we'd begun had in the main or to a large extent succeeded - and persecutions of normal gay behaviour lessened and acceptance of most gay life became a norm and social events organised more and more on a sophisticated lavish commercial very pro-gay basis. Though some see this as a new ghettoisation of gay life - it's there, a great Out Proud world established - taking advantage of freedoms won. It's quite natural there should have been a diversification of the movement - it was altogether CHE that one brief final push to gain very basic freedoms - which were achieved.
Another branch of diversification has been in the reaction to homophobic attack. Homophobic attacks are now dealt with by gay-police liaison groups and - though scoffers may sniff Uncle Tom - quite successfully for the organisers and to assure gay public opinion that all is well.
Gay men's health issues grew into today's well funded professional trusts who run highly sophisticated, focussed and very pro-gay operations. CHE was pre-Aids anyway. The campaigns against latter day loony laws like Clause 28 have been taken up both by specific organisations like gay teachers and the militants - G.L.F. and later OutRage which is increasingly international. And all the good for that. At home there have been scores of cases of false allegations of abuse in care homes and there's now a good outfit dealing with that - FACT (falsely accused carers and teachers). The movement you could say has grown up - branches, diversified yet these general cases keep popping up, disturbing and not being fought - politically. So Allan returns to the grass roots of gay politics back in Lancashire befriending ordinary gays caught in terrible predicaments - where their homosexual wanderings had led them into falling foul of police entrapment, blackmail, false accusations they couldn't defend without hurt and loss - and we're talking of 2001/2002 - ordinary gays in fear of unnecessary prosecutions.
These court cases need monitoring - where homosexual behaviour falls foul. A network of those who care needs to be in place so at least information can be swapped and a political case made for these kinds of things to stop.
Ray gosling - though gay has had a long life as a journalist, broadcaster and writer/TV front man notably celebrating proletarian life with radio 4 and Radio 2 - documentaries about such subjects as The Shed, the allotment, caravan, Eddie Cochran and the semi-detached etc., TV films about exotic places like Rochdale, Weymouth, Lewes, Pontins and Goole et al .But he's been a friend of Allan's for 40 years and an honorary vice-president of CHE since its inception and was heavily involved in the Esquire Clubs effort.
In 1998 Ray wrote and fronted the Channel 4 hour-long documentary of the Bolton seven affair - an infamous trial of young men who'd videoed their (very mild) group sex. And has with Allan helped to keep some kind of Gay Court Case Watch in Lancashire - over cases in the areas covered by Bolton Crown, Burnley, Preston sometimes and sometimes Manchester. There have also been forays to Leeds and into the West midlands - plus trying to write and remember how queer life was versus how gays now are.
Great betterment has happened no doubt for many sides of homosexual behaviour - but old days are worth remembering. And gay life remains dangerous - for out there are folks who don't like it - and feel threatened - often without 'it' touching them or ever having touched them - they feel it has to be put down and in particular kept away from the children. |
