Pride and Prejudice

Panel discussion with Peter Tatchell, Lisa Power MBE from the Terrence Higgins Trust and Michael Cashman MEP (Labour politician and founder of Stonewall). Chaired by Dr Matt Cook of Birkbeck University. Back in 1985 a speaker at the Conservative Party Conference was cheered when he said, 'If you want a queer for your neighbour, vote Labour!' Today, many leading Conservatives support gay marriage. A watershed in the long struggle for civil rights for LGBT citizens was resistance to Clause 28, which prohibited local authorities from presenting 'homosexuality as a pretended family relationship'. How did such hostility and prejudice give way to tolerance and now, perhaps, the possibility, at last, of equality? All three speakers will discuss how far we have come since the 1980s and how far there still remains to go.