Nelson gay rights icon dies, aged 84 (From This Is Lancashire)

"Oh."

we need more heroes like this. respect

Here's a tribute to him in the Socialist Workers' Party monthly, Socialist Review

Colin Wilson pays tribute to a pioneering campaigner for gay rights who died last month

Allan Horsfall, a pioneer of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) equality in Britain, has died aged 84. He was a key figure in the movement to abolish laws in England that banned all sex between men.

Horsfall founded the North-West Homosexual Law Reform Committee in 1964. He had been a Labour councillor in Nelson, Lancashire, and had seen police arresting gay men, going through their address book and then arresting all their friends.

The North-West Committee was part of the wider movement for law reform, but was very different from the London-based Homosexual Law Reform Society.

That campaign was always deeply respectable. It was mostly composed of heterosexual middle class people, such as lawyers or clergymen. It relied on polite lobbying rather than on public campaigns.

Horsfall lived in a miner’s cottage and worked in the estates department of the National Coal Board. Later he recalled the local response to his campaigning in the small mining community where he lived.

“When we put out the AGM announcement the local paper did a front page spread with an eight-column headline, which they’d never done before, ‘Homosexuals and the Law’.

“Of course everybody thought we’d get our windows put through and all sorts of harassment. But we didn’t get anything like that at all. No trouble.”

Open

Most of the members of the North-West Committee were gay themselves, including Horsfall. Some of them were openly gay. The committee rejected the national campaign’s view that gay men were unfortunate people who deserved pity.

When the law was finally changed in 1967, the national body regarded their task as complete, and became inactive.

But the North-West Committee continued to campaign. Gay men had few places to socialise, so the Committee called for the establishment of non-profit social clubs. Respectable supporters in parliament were appalled.

Gay campaigning changed enormously after the Stonewall Riot of June 1969. The Gay Liberation Front, established in Britain in 1970, saw itself as part of the revolutionary movement of the time.

The North-West Committee became the basis of the national Campaign for Homosexual Equality—in the new context of the 1970s, seen as a very moderate organisation—with Horsfall at its head.

Horsfall continued to campaign into the 1990s. He supported the Bolton 7, a group of working class men convicted in 1998 for having group sex, which had not been decriminalised in 1967 and remained illegal until 2003. One man received a two year suspended sentence.

Allan Horsfall’s decades of campaigning should inspire us all. Today when Pride marches are sponsored by multinationals, it’s remarkable to think that key events in the history of the LGBT movement took place in a miner’s cottage near Wigan

http://socialistwork
er.co.uk/art.php?id=
29512

He must have been a truly brave man if he was prepared to stand up and demand equality and freedom when there was none.

Would any of our modern day councillors do the same?

But its not normal

RUinsane wrote:
But its not normal

define normal.

What a joke . Why should gays have any more rights than anyone else .
Normal is putting your penis in a woman not a mans ****.

BritainfortheBritish wrote:
What a joke . Why should gays have any more rights than anyone else .
Normal is putting your penis in a woman not a mans ****.

Quite right too. What next a campaign for animal love? Oddballs

BritainfortheBritish wrote:
What a joke . Why should gays have any more rights than anyone else .
Normal is putting your penis in a woman not a mans ****.

Gays have exactly the same rights as you, it's just that they need them more to stop any form of bigotry and oppression. It's actually the same laws that allow you both to write what you wish without the police knocking down your door.

You both have expressed an opinion as yet but have not defined what's normal. If people are born gay - is that not normal? If 1 in 100000 on a planet of billions is gay, does that not become 'normal'?

P.S. The reason the edl and bnp will always be seen as a joke is because it is made up of narrow minded bigots like you two and it's this f***ing stupidity which is detracting from the real issue.

jack daniels wrote:

BritainfortheBritish wrote:
What a joke . Why should gays have any more rights than anyone else .
Normal is putting your penis in a woman not a mans ****.

Gays have exactly the same rights as you, it's just that they need them more to stop any form of bigotry and oppression. It's actually the same laws that allow you both to write what you wish without the police knocking down your door.

You both have expressed an opinion as yet but have not defined what's normal. If people are born gay - is that not normal? If 1 in 100000 on a planet of billions is gay, does that not become 'normal'?

P.S. The reason the edl and bnp will always be seen as a joke is because it is made up of narrow minded bigots like you two and it's this f***ing stupidity which is detracting from the real issue.

I think you have had to much jack daniels. It,s obviously addled your brain.
Are people " born " gay ? No one knows . As i stated earlier how is it normal to go with another man or woman .Take a look around the world .The majority are men and women together so that surely tells someone that is what is normal.

At my workplace there are special policies for gays lesbians and transexuals . Is that not preferential treatment therefore not equal to hetrosexuals ?

There is nothing bigoted about saying it is not normal as it is the truth .It is just pc idiots like yourself that think this.
Also if you read some of the BNP,s policies you would find there are many accurate things in there that most of Britain agree with .It is just some of their other idiotic policies and mass media anti BNP propaganda that stops them getting more votes.

As for the EDL i am right behind them .They are not racist as the government and media try to portray them and they are not anti gay etc.
They are though anti islam and they have every right to be as i look around this country and see far to many mosques and muslim schools and muslim ways being brought in with no government daring to say anything.
I hope the EDL grows and grows until some party has the balls to put a stop to the ever rising threat of islam.

@BritainfortheBritis
h. What a crock of drivel.

"At my workplace there are special policies for gays lesbians and transexuals"

It's simply the equality act, which is there to protect EVERYBODY. It even protects you, but because you don't know any better; you've never even noticed.

"Are people " born " gay ? No one knows".
Well, what if you are born gay?

How do you 'turn' straight?

What if you can't?

Thankfully we have the equality act so that narrow minded people like you don't have any authority or power over a minority.

I tell thee, I'd rather be a PC idiot than a follower of that retard Nick Griffin who looked a complete thicko on newsnight and kissed up to the black american lass because she showed pity (and contempt) towards him.

It's the EDL and BNP stupidity which is stopping the country looking at this islamification of the UK and until somebody without a criminal record (or denies the holocaust) comes along, you'll always be seen as a joke.

Don't forget - it's you questioning people who are gay. People who are gay are NOT questioning you!

Who's the oppressor....

Lol so funny that you actually think Nick Griffin was shown up . He was deliberately ambushed by the bbc and a chosen audience . If you really watched it he challenged the American woman and she could not respond aproppriately nor could jack straw who was made to look a fool .
The EDL are nothing to do with Nick Griffin or the BNP . By the way muslims deny the holocaust .
Also where do you stand on the muslims and rape under the guise of marriage and also child rape under the same guise ?

BritainfortheBritish wrote:
Lol so funny that you actually think Nick Griffin was shown up . He was deliberately ambushed by the bbc and a chosen audience . If you really watched it he challenged the American woman and she could not respond aproppriately nor could jack straw who was made to look a fool .
The EDL are nothing to do with Nick Griffin or the BNP . By the way muslims deny the holocaust .
Also where do you stand on the muslims and rape under the guise of marriage and also child rape under the same guise ?

Oh lord, save me from the stupidity of others.

Yes, I did watch the program and the only people that believe that Nick the p-rick Griffin did really well are

you
him
the BNP.

Everybody else watched him fail. The WHOLE British media can't have lied too about him falling on his fat, stupid face. That's starting to sound a bit paranoid if you do.

Yes, I know that the BNP and the EDL are not the same - just similar ideals.

Interesting about your comment "muslims deny the holocaust ". It seems them and Nick the p-rick have something in common.

My stance on

'muslims and rape under the guise of marriage and also child rape under the same guise'?

Same as yours; it's a backward cutural practice from a backward culture which oppresses women. The more the pakistani community marry their 'village hick cousins' the more they will bring over this rabid extremism to the UK.

One of their extremist view points is the banning of homosexuality. What's Nick the **** stance on that? Bet you it's the same as yours and the muslims?

How strange then that i work with a lot of professional people and also mix with many others and most thought the same as me and that is that it was a deliberate ambush by the bbc .

Nick Griffin was spoken over on many occassions by a loud mouth American.
He spoke the truth on the programme which is very rare for any politician .
The fact is any white Brit speaking the truth or quoting facts is jumped on by pc loons stating they are racist / nazi etc etc.
The British media have always had it in for the BNP and that is common knowledge not paranoia . The BNP also have some good policies but unfortunately also some idiotic ones .But they are certainly right about immigration /asylum etc.I believe Nick Griffin does not like homosexuality nor do the muslims.
But to ban it would be impossible .I do not want to ban it but i do not want preferential treatment over it.
By the way my younger brother is gay and he does not believe ib preferential treatment or policies he just gets on with his life as should the rest .