Gay community still faces challenges

The gay movement may believe that significant progress has been made in the cause for equality and acceptance.

However, it could be said that decriminalisation has been primarily motivated by public health concerns with the AIDS issue and STDs in general, that forced governments to encompass all in the need to control such diseases which are just as prevalent in the heterosexual community.

Health-based decriminalisation of homosexuality has also been forced through EU legislation and reluctantly accepted by governments, but not necessarily in a total equality format and with major caveats. Governments also could not afford to drive the homosexual community underground.

However, such changes in favour of the gay community are by no means a guarantee that public attitudes towards gay people have changed in any way.

Some sociological evidence states that significant prejudice and vilification exists in the private sphere of life, despite political piety from politicians who are feigning their support because of hypocritical political correctness. Behind the scenes, gay people are reviled and treated like aliens who in reality have yet to be accepted as full citizens.

The gay community need to take a bite out of reality once in a while to avoid delusion, as do the non-gay world, in accepting that gay people exist, so the world in which we live can be a more harmonious place — a human village?

Maurice Fitzgerald

Shanbally

Co Cork