Friday 5 December 2008

The world moves on.

By which I mean there was a rather interesting court report in this weeks Falkirk Herald. It described a domestic violence case and the Sheriff delaying sentencing for reports. Far from unusual. The interesting bit was that the couple were both male. What I found particularly interesting (and in an odd way encouraging) was that the report was perfectly factual and didn't get into hysterics over gayness. It reported the case simply as a domestic and saw nothing unusual in the gender or orientation of the individuals concerned. That says a lot about how far we as a society have travelled with regard to LGBT people even in my lifetime. I was born in 1967 - a few months after the decriminalisation of male homosexual acts for the over 21's. I have never drawn breath in a society where same sex relationship were totally discriminated against (well, except in Scotland where it took until 1980 to bring the law into line with England and Wales - one of the few good things the Thatcher Govt did in my personal opinion. And Northern Ireland but I can't remember when they fell into line). Normal, treated just like the straight majority even when the news isn't good. Surely that's the sort of equality we've been working for all along?

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