The membership remains buoyant with a continued influx of new members, most of whom now join via PayPal on the Internet.
Our public meetings at Conway Hall in London over the year covered by this report have been very successful with varied topics, good speakers and high attendances.
The programme started in October 2004 with Memories are made of this in which we joined with the Campaign for Homosexual Equality to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the North-West Homosexual Law Reform Committee by Allan Horsfall and others in October 1964. Special guest speakers were Allan Horsfall, Peter Tatchell and Antony Grey. In December we welcomed National Secular Society President Denis Cobell whose talk Our Pagan Christmas explained the origins of traditions surrounding the Christmas festival – most of which have nothing to do with Christianity. To celebrate Darwin Day in February 2005 we presented Sea Change – A Fire and Brimstone play based on the historic voyage of HMS Beagle and highlighting the conflict between its Captain Robert Fitzroy, a committed Christian, and Charles Darwin. In March we invited a panel of speakers to debate Beyond Our Ken – Homophobia, Islamophobia and the Mayor about the controversy sparked by the warm welcome given by Ken Livingstone to the homophobic Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. With a general election in the offing, we arranged in April an Election Special with a panel of representatives of the political parties explaining their respective parties’ stances on the various issues and taking questions from the audience. At the request of the French gay activist Louis-Georges Tin, who initiated the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO), we undertook to co-ordinate this special day in the UK, so May saw a special meeting to mark the first IDAHO with readings by authors, poets and campaigners highlighting the history of the fight against homophobia. In July we splashed out on a two-day Film Festival held in the Screening Room of the Covent Garden Hotel. This featured three films: Latter Days, Heart of the Beholder (a premiere) and He Came With Wheels. We were very pleased to welcome as visitors and speakers at the Festival the executive producer of Heart of the Beholder, Darlene Lieblich, and the film’s writer/director, Ken Tipton, as well as two of our vice-presidents, Dr Evan Harris MP and Darren Johnson, leader of the Green Party group in the London Assembly.
Thanks to Derek Lennard, the main organiser of the meetings, other committee members who helped, Mike Savage who helped with publicity, and Terry Murphy who organised the refreshments.
A quarter of a century after we were formed as the Gay Humanist Group (GHG) at the CHE conference in Brighton in the face of fierce religious hostility, we returned to the city for our weekend gathering. The gathering was held from 3 to 6 September at the Imperial Hotel and one of the original “gang of six” who founded the group, Barry Duke, warned members that, despite enormous gains made by gays and lesbians over the last 25 years, reactionary religious forces were at work determined to reverse those gains. Islam was now the country’s fastest-growing religion and, with its inherent hatred of western values, and its barbaric attitude towards women and homosexuality, it posed a very real threat to civil liberties in general and the gay and lesbian community in particular. Members were also warned that freedom of speech would be severely curtailed if the new incitement to religious hatred law was enacted.
The late Mary Whitehouse was given full credit for her part in our founding with a commemorative T-shirt bearing her image and the words “Born of Mary” being produced to mark the occasion.
At the celebratory dinner on the Saturday evening GALHA chairperson Derek Lennard read out a letter of support from the mayor of Brighton and Hove, Mrs Pat Drake, in which she said: “As Mayor of Brighton and Hove I am honoured to welcome the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association and to express my congratulations on the association’s silver jubilee. I wish you a successful, enjoyable, and memorable gathering in the city where GALHA was born 25 years ago.”
The dinner was followed by a side-splitting entertainment with Terry Sanderson playing a closeted “ex-gay” priest being interviewed by Derek Lennard doing a splendid imitation of Sir David Frost.
Two other highlights of the weekend were a guided tour of some of the gay landmarks in the town by members of Ourstory, a local lesbian and gay history project, and a coach excursion to Lewes, where veteran freethinker Bill McIlroy made sure we saw all the town’s freethought connections, including those relating to Thomas Paine.
Thanks to committee member Lee Stacy for organising a very enjoyable and successful event.
Two resolutions were carried at the group’s Annual General Meeting which was held during the Brighton weekend gathering:
“This AGM congratulates London mayor Ken Livingstone on his staunch support for lesbian and gay rights over many years and, more recently, setting up the London partnership registration scheme for same-sex couples. However, it expresses its dismay and concern at the warm welcome he has accorded the ultra-homophobic Muslim cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi at City Hall. It calls on Mr Livingstone to reconsider his decision to re-invite the cleric in October this year.”
“GALHA strongly supports the recent campaign waged jointly by Peter Tatchell and OutRage! against reggae and hip-hop performers, such as Beenie Man, Elephant Man, and Vybz Kartel, whose lyrics incite violence towards gays. Furthermore, in order to prevent similar incitements of violence towards either individual lesbians, gay men or bisexuals, or towards the whole LGB community, GALHA calls on the Government to enforce legislation criminalising incitement of violence towards lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals because of their sexual orientation.”
Our 25th anniversary lunch was held on 13 November 2004 at Bertorelli’s Restaurant in London’s Soho. It was very well attended and we were pleased to welcome Michael Cashman MEP as our guest-of-honour and speaker. A fellow atheist and humanist, Michael gave a punchy and highly entertaining speech which was warmly applauded.
The following news releases were issued during the period covered by this report: MOBO Must Not Promote Singers of Murderous Lyrics (27 August 2004), GALHA Silver Jubilee Gathering (7 September 2004), Anglicans Create a Fantasy World of "Evil" Gays (18 October 2004), Homophobic Christian Evangelist Banned (20 October 2004), RE Guidelines Fail to Protect Gay Pupils (1 November 2004), GALHA Lunch (15 November 2004), Government Abusing Gay Rights for the Muslim Vote (19 November 2004), GALHA Welcomes New Vice-President (21 November 2004), Archbishop’s Plea is Not Enough (28 November 2004), Livingstone Wrong to Defend Muslim Cleric (12 January 2005), Independent Faith Schools Promoting Homophobia (24 January 2005), Catholic Church Should Not Use Public Money to Promote Bigotry (20 March 2005), GALHA Coordinates International Day Against Homophobia (1 April 2005), Pope John Paul II: Implacable Homophobe (3 April 2005), Vatican Shoots Itself in the Foot with New Reactionary Pope (19 April 2005), Humanists Welcome Holyrood Stance on Catholic Homophobia (2 May 2005), Gays Call for Ban on Islamic Extremist (19 July 2005), Green Support for Gay Humanists (22 July 2005).
Most of these resulted in publicity in the gay press and on the gay websites. Our acquisition of two prominent Green Party members – Darren Johnson and Patrick Harvie – as vice-presidents was reported in the May/June 2005 issue of BHA News. The Brighton-based magazine Gscene devoted a whole page to our September 2004 weekend gathering in the town and the Pink Paper featured us in a “Groupie” column in its 26 May 2005 issue with a photo of the Brighton weekend gathering.
Our media officer, Terry Sanderson, gave interviews on our behalf, notably on Channel 4 and ITV News concerning the new pope, and a half-hour one on Talk Radio concerning our request to Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, to ban Sheikh Al-Qaradawi.
Letters from the secretary on GALHA’s behalf, and from other members, have been published in the gay press notably the Pink Paper. The Guardian published a letter written on behalf of GALHA concerning Qaradawi’s homophobia and Livingstone’s support for him.
GALHA members took part in a protest on 17 May 2005 outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London. The protest was against the flogging of gay men in that barbaric Islamic theocracy after they had allegedly attended a gay wedding. The protest coincided with the International Day Against Homophobia and was jointly organised by GALHA and OutRage!.
We continued our affiliations to Amnesty International and the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
Birmingham, Cardiff, Lewisham, North-East and Sutton Humanist groups have renewed their affiliations. Thanks to these for their continued support.
We are listed in Gay Times, Diva, ScotsGay, The Freethinker, the GaytoZ Directory, the NCVO Voluntary Agencies Directory, a MIND Mental Health Factsheet aimed at lesbians and gays, Same Sex Support Services Directory in Wales and the UK, CAB directories, Ask Hollis (the Directory of UK associations), The Guide (Norfolk), the UK AIDS Directory, the Spartacus International Gay Guide, the Yearbook of International Organizations, the IHEU Humanist Directory, and the Freethinker’s Directory.
Dean Braithwaite continues to represent us on the board of Consortium, the umbrella organisation for lesbian and gay community groups nationwide. We continue to be represented at the LGBT organisations meetings sponsored by the Greater London Authority. On 3 October 2004, Lee Stacy represented us, and spoke on our behalf, at South Place Ethical Society’s Annual Re-Union of Kindred Humanist Societies. On 27 June 2005 at the invitation of London’s mayor, Derek Lennard represented us at The Mayor’s Pride reception at the GLA’s City Hall.
The web counter on the home page of our website recorded 12,000 visits during the year (an average of 233 a week, and 10% up on the previous year). In addition to the usual updates to the event listings, we created individual pages for the International Day Against Homophobia in May 2005 and the Film Festival in July 2005. A significant proportion of new members are now recruited via the PayPal option on the site. This year, for the first time, we accepted online bookings for an event (the Film Festival) and this also proved to be successful. The Online Bookstore section of the site has reached 140 titles, most of them books mentioned or reviewed in the Gay and Lesbian Humanist. Membership of the electronic discussion list grew by some 10% over the year and traffic on the list increased by almost a third, up from 899 messages last year to 1192 this year.
This continues to be published quarterly, edited by Andy Armitage and Dean Braithwaite with help from Mike Foxwell, and has been increased to 24 pages. It is issued free to GALHA members and complimentary copies are sent (many on a reciprocal basis) to other LGBT and humanist organisations/publications worldwide. The publishers and editors are very grateful to all those who have made gratis contributions to the past year’s issues.
Members of the committee serving during the period covered by this report are Malcolm Barnes, Cherry Bennet, George Broadhead, Brett Humphreys, Derek Lennard, Brett Lock, Roy Saich, Terry Sanderson and Lee Stacy. Malcolm Barnes has acted as treasurer, George Broadhead as secretary, and Derek Lennard as chairperson.
For the seventh year running, Philip Bayliss has acted gratis as our auditor. Many thanks to him for all the hard work he has put in.
George Broadhead
Secretary
September 2005