Gay News

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Gay News was a pioneering fortnightly newspaper in the United Kingdom founded in June 1972 in a collaboration between the Gay Liberation Front and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality.

The original editorial collective included Denis Lemon (editor), Martin Corbett - who later was an active member of Act Up, David Seligman, a founder member of the London Gay Switchboard collective, Ian Dunn of Scottish CHE, Glenys Parry from Manchester CHE, Suki J Pitcher, and Doug Pollard, who later went on to launch Britain's first weekly gay newspaper, Gay Week (affectionately known as Gweek), and is now a presenter on Joy Melbourne 94.9FM, Australia's first full time GLBTI radio station, and editor of Melbourne Star, the city's fortnightly gay newspaper. Amongst its early "Special Friends" were Graham Chapman of Monty Python's Flying Circus, his partner David Sherlock and Antony Grey, secretary of the UK Homosexual Law Reform Society from 1962 to 1970.

Gay sex had only become legal for males over the age of 21 in England and Wales with the passage of the Sexual Offences Act in 1967. After the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969, the Gay Liberation Front spread from the USA to London in 1970. Gay News was the response to a nationwide demand by lesbians and gay men for news of the burgeoning liberation movement.

The magazine played a pivotal part in the struggle for gay rights in the 1970s in the UK. It was described by Alison Hennegan (who joined the newspaper as Assistant Features Editor and Literary Editor in June 1977) as the movement's "debating chamber". Although essentially a newspaper, reporting alike on discrimination and political and social advances, it also campaigned for further law reform, including an equal age of consent (16) with heterosexuals, against the hostility of the church which treated homosexuality as a sin, and the medical profession which treated homosexuality as a pathology. It campaigned too for equal rights in employment (notably in the controversial area of the teaching profession) and the trades union movement at a time when left politics in the United Kingdom was still historically influenced by its non-conformist roots in its hostility to homosexuality. But under the influence of its Features Editor, Keith Howes, and Alison Hennegan it also excavated the lesbian and cultural history of past decades as well as presenting new developments in the arts. Keith Howes later published an encyclopaedic reference work called 'Broadcasting It' ostensibly dealing with homosexuality in film, radio and TV from 1923 to 1993 (Cassell, London/New York, 1993) but amounting to a cultural review of British homosexuality in the twentieth century

The paper challenged the authorities from the outset by publishing personal contact ads, in defiance of the law - in early editions this section was always headlined "Love knoweth no laws".

In the first year of publication, editor Denis Lemon was charged and fined for obstruction, for taking photographs of police behaviour outside the popular Earls Court leather bar "The Coleherne".

In 1974, Gay News was charged with obscenity, having published an issue with a cover photograph of two men kissing. It won the court case.

In 1976-77, Mary Whitehouse brought a private prosecution (Whitehouse v. Lemon) against both the newspaper and its editor, Denis Lemon, over the publication of James Kirkup's poem The Love that Dares to Speak its Name in the issue dated 3 June 1976. Denis Lemon was found guilty and sentenced to a suspended 18 month prison sentence along with fines and costs awarded against himself and Gay News amounting to nearly £10,000. After a campaign and an appeal the suspended prison sentece was dropped. The case drew enormous media coverage at the time.In 2002 BBC Radio 4 made a play about the trial.

One of the biggest problems the magazine faced was that, although not an obscene publication, sale outlets were hard to find. W.H. Smith then controlled much of the newspaper and magazine distribution in the UK through a wholly owned subsidiary and they refused to sell it or allow their distribution company to distribute it to other suppliers. Various campaigns were organised by the gay community to shame W.H Smith to allow the magazine to be sold by them, with a successful outcome.

Gay News Ltd ceased trading on 15 April 1983.

• A good account of the Blasphemy trial is contained at:

http://www.galha.org/glh/214/humphreys.html

Gay and Lesbian Humanist – The Law that Dared to Lay the Blame