comment 31 said by Pete, National Front on Wednesday, 8 August 2007, 6:20pm

To understand something is fine, but to be taught it as a natural alternative to the heterosexual lifestyle is, in our opinion, the corruption of young minds. In fact they are teaching it to children as young as five now, I don't even want children that young to be taught about straight sexual practices! Nobody that young should be indoctrinated by any adult, especially those entrusted with their educational welfare.

Teachers, just like politicians and social workers all have their own agendas, more often than not this is totally against what is acceptable to straight working class white families. In fact the whole damn system has been set up to destroy our way of life.

Do you remember when you just wanted to be left alone?

comment 32 said on Wednesday, 8 August 2007, 7:07pm

As a gay Christian, I am lucky in that I attend two churches - one gay and one straight - and am involved with both.

Christian Voice are are bunch of biggots and should get back to basics. Is it not an element of the Christian faith to love one another
as I have loved you?

The National Front should go back to reading Mein Kampf - they are as out of date as the the stone age.

comment 33 said by Westhamandy on Wednesday, 8 August 2007, 9:26pm

Sorry, but I don't buy what the NF say about Section 28. Even if we start from the basis that being gay is a vice - I went to school in the 1960's at a time when there was little tolerance shown towards homosexuals. That didn't stop me, or many others, from being gay.

Do statistics show there are fewer gay people in the age groups that went to school while Section 28 was in force? I doubt it. And why go to Brighton to protest? Parliament is in London. It's politicians that make the law - not the partygoers at Pride.

comment 34 said by Psyonic on Thursday, 9 August 2007, 1:30am

I do not agree with the views of Christian Voice or the National Front, but its a free world and if they wanted to protest peacefully then I do think they should have been allowed to.

I did not see the NF one, so cannot comment, but I did get very close to the CV one and thought that the way they were provoking everybody was disgusting. Using one of those loud speaker things to go on about the evils of being gay was not peaceful protest. I did see a few empty plastic bottles being thrown at them, but most of it was just verbal insults back at the CV prats, something I did join in with. It is possible that people who had already been really upset by the CV crap then spotted the NF people and thought they were doing the same.

On the subject of education, every year since my daughter was 5 my wife and I (yes, I am a happily married man) have taken her to Gay Pride as it is normally a great day out and we have never had any problem with her knowing about gay people.

If I had to choose between her being gay or straight then I would prefer her to be straight, but only because of small minded people like CV. If she did turn out to be a lesbian then I would much rather she could come to us and discuss it openly and honestly, rather than try to hide it.

I work in mental health and I have met many people who have had serious mental health problems after years of hiding away in the closet. People need to be open, children do need to know, not details of course, we have explained it so our daughter understands that while most men like women, some like men, some like both and that's just the way the world is. When I was in my late teens I had a boyfriend for a while, but most of my family still do not know that (I have been 100% honest with my wife), the stress of having a family you do not feel able to tell is horrible... funny thing is that the main person I was really scared of telling came out themselves a few years back!

comment 35 said by Stephen Watson on Thursday, 9 August 2007, 4:04pm

I have no problem with either of these two groups appearing at Pride, providing neither of them are inciting hatred or violence (physical or verbal). Free speech means sometimes having to be confronted with things you'd rather not see or hear.

It's also important to remember the roots of this giant party which was a political protest about being denied equal rights before the law and that's still an area where discrimination exists in 2007 in this country and definitely abroad.

And I don't want five year olds instructed in sexual practice either - but then that was never what Section 28 was about, so that's a straw man argument. Being queer, gay, homosexual (however you see it) is not "an alternative to a heterosexual lifestyle" as you put it. You make it sound on a par with "corn flakes are an alternative to puffed wheat".

I knew I was different from my friends when I was around 10 or 11, but it took me until I was 19 to finally find out what that actually meant - 8 or 9 years of confusion, uncertainty, sitting on the shelf at parties and feeling out of place. As I've explained to many people, I had all the pieces of the jigsaw but not until I was 19 did someone give me the picture so I knew how to put them together.

Section 28 encourages gay kids to wander around in limbo at one of the most important times of their lives - teenage years are hard enough to negotiate for a straight kid and I could have really done with some education about something fundamental to the core of myself. It would hardly have been 'corruption of my young mind'.