LGBT Humanists 45th Anniversary: volunteers on the front line

This year, LGBT Humanists celebrates a remarkable milestone – its 45th anniversary. For nearly half a century, its volunteers have been a driving force for LGBT rights, championing compassion, reason, and human rights across the country. But how did it all begin?

LGBT Humanists’ story begins in 1976. It was then that Mary Whitehouse, a teacher and social conservative, initiated a ‘blasphemous libel’ case against Gay News for publishing James Kirkup’s poem ‘The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name’. The poem, depicting the love of a Roman centurion for a crucified Jesus, led Whitehouse to decry an ‘intellectual, homosexual, and humanist lobby’. This lobby didn’t actually exist, but the idea certainly resonated with humanists. Inspired by this notion, LGBT Humanists was created in 1979.

LGBT Humanists (then the Gay Humanists Group) officially launched at the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) Brighton Conference in August 1979. Initially, the group formed as activists opposing Mary Whitehouse and her lawsuit. Co-founders Barry Duke and Brian Parry envisioned a group that would challenge ‘ignorance, superstition, dogma, and bigotry, encouraging more gay humanists to confidently express their identities and beliefs’. Today, LGBT Humanists proudly continues this tradition.

The history of LGBT Humanists is rich with interactions and collaborations with various groups, all striving towards a more tolerant society. LGBT Humanist campaigns have achieved so many significant victories: the end of section 28 in schools, the introduction of same-sex marriage in the UK, an end to blasphemy as a crime in England and Wales, the establishment of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia in the UK, and the ongoing fight against ‘conversion therapy‘.