As the latest edition of the British Social Attitudes survey shows, views have changed as well. Yes, there’s been a tiny dip in the percentage of people in the UK who think it’s OK to be gay – more or less within the margin of error – but still the vast majority are cool with gays. It seems that changing the law has helped change attitudes, and politicians have led where others were at first reluctant to follow. And when it came to Northern Ireland legislation this week the Commons delivered the largest majority ever in favour of gay equality – 383 to 73 – even though some fellow gay MPs and our allies felt it more important to leave it to Northern Ireland’s own politicians to introduce equal marriage. [...]
From 1880 to 2001 we had tough anti-homosexuality laws. Men were sent to prison for seven years with hard labour. They were arrested, convicted and flogged for “importuning”, that is to say, chatting up a stranger. They were convicted on the flimsiest of evidence – a touch of mascara or a powder puff in their pocket. They were subjected to intimidation, abuse and blackmail. They never dared report a queer-bashing lest they be the subject of the police investigation.
But that would never happen again, I hear you cry. We’ve turned the page. All I say is let’s not forget that the most liberal city in the world in the 20th century was Berlin, during the Weimar Republic. Rich gay men travelled from England to enjoy the pleasures of dozens of bars and clubs that catered for every purse and every preference. But in 1934 Hitler killed off gay Nazis such as Edmund Heines and Ernst Röhm in the Night of the Long Knives, and started sending gay men to Dachau and other concentration camps. Thousands were murdered without a memorial.
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