George Broadhead

BORN OF MARY!

THIS YEAR, the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) celebrates its 20th anniversary. Though a baby in the Humanist/Freethought movement, this makes it one of the longest established national gay groups in the UK. It is affiliated to Amnesty International which has a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Network, and, of course, to the IHEU.

GALHA was founded in 1979 as the Gay Humanist Group (GHG) in the aftermath of the notorious Gay News blasphemy prosecution. The instigator of this prosecution, Mrs Mary Whitehouse, then a leading-light of the Christian lobbying group, the Nationwide Festival of Light, frequently referred to 'a humanist, homosexual lobby'" although none existed at the time. This gave a few gays in the UK Humanist movement the idea of setting up such a lobby. As Nicolas Walter of the Rationalist Press Association says in his book Blasphemy Ancient & Modern, Whitehouse's action led to the formation of "one of the liveliest sections of the Freethought movement".

In August 1979, an ad hoc committee of six gay Humanists - Barry Duke (now editor of The Freethinker), Chris Findlay, Jim Herrick (now editor of New Humanist and former editor of International Humanist News), Brian Parry, Roy Saich, and myself - arranged the formal launch of GHG at a meeting in Brighton during the conference of the Campaign for Homosexual equality. This conference was attended by 600 people and the GHG meeting was addressed by Bill Mcllroy, a former General Secretary of the National Secular Society. It is fitting that 20 years on Bill was the guest speaker at GALHA's 20th anniversary weekend gathering in York from 10-13 September.

Since the Brighton meeting, GALHA has built up a core of loyal members in many parts of the UK and abroad and continues to fulfil its aims of bringing the Humanist outlook to the attention of the lesbian and gay community and gay rights issues to the attention of the Humanist/Freethought movement. It arranges regular monthly public meetings in London and is one of only two UK Humanist organisations to hold a regular annual residential weekend event. It has played a major part in the campaigns to further gay and Humanist rights over the past twenty years - both in terms of lobbying and direct action.

In 1992 GALHA set up the gay Humanist charity, the Pink Triangle Trust, which arranges Humanist affirmation ceremonies for lesbian and gay couples all over the UK and publishes the quarterly magazine Gay & Lesbian Humanist.

GALHA is grateful for the help and co-operation received since its inception from other Humanist organisations and their personnel - the BHA, NSS, RPA, SPES and I]-IEU - from local Humanist groups, two of which (Birmingham and Cardiff) are affiliated to it, and from the many individual Humanists who have lent it their moral and financial support.

George Broadhead is General secretary of GALHA. A copy of the important IHEU Resolution on ‘Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered People’s

interests in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' proposed by GALHA and adopted by IHEll at its '99 GA in Mumbai can be obtained from the IHEU by E Mail.