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Abstract

Islington's past as an important battleground for gay rights was remembered at a moving event at the town hall.

Dozens of activists gathered to hear Islington resident Lisa Power, who co-founded charity Stone­wall, a human rights group which champions lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender causes.

The event marked the 30th anniversary of Section 28 of the Local Government Act coming into law.
It stated that a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality”. It was repealed in Scotland in 2000 and the rest of the UK in 2003.

Lisa Power told the meeting: ‘We were very busy changing the world. We really didn’t notice the growing threat in Islington’

Ms Power told the packed-out main chamber last Wednesday: “We were very busy changing the world. We really didn’t notice the growing threat in Islington [against LGBT rights].”

The activist, who lived on a canal boat in Angel, helped set up the Pink Paper, a gay rights newspaper, in Rosebery Avenue to highlight how Section 28 was discriminatory.

“It was the first lesbian and gay newspaper since Gay News fell and there was a very small number of us. It was the height of winter and we were working by candlelight as the landlord hadn’t paid the electricity.

The first resist­ance newspapers to Section 28 were done by candlelight and by hand,” said Ms Power. She recounted how actor and gay rights activist Ian McKellen called her up to ask for advice on how to progress LGBT rights.

A copy of children’s book Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, the story of a girl living with gay parents, was displayed at the meeting. Islington Council refused to remove the book from its libraries during the 1980s in an act of resistance to Section 28.

Town Hall chief for community development, Councillor Kaya Comer-Schwartz, announced that the council will be reviewing teaching re­sources for sex and relationship education in primary schools in the hope of making it more inclusive.