Pride Parties On

There was over a million people on London's streets today for an amazing celebration of gayness! The UK's biggest gay pride event has been hailed a massive success by all who went, and the party atmosphere is still going strong!


The Parade was kicked off in fine style by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who when confronted with veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell carrying a placard calling for gay marriage said “If the Conservatives and Liberals can get together in a national coalition and settle their differences, I don't see why you can't have gay marriage” he added: “Pride shows that London is the most generous, open, diverse city, whatever your background”


Mr Tatchell told the UK's PinkNews "I'm very pleased. He took one look at it and said 'why not?' adding "I'm sure his support will add to the pressure to marriage equality."






Whilst any support of equal gay marriage is obviously most welcome, I'm not sure this is the ringing endorsement the GLBT community could have hoped for from the Mayor Johnson, who has previously stated that gay marriage "can only ever be a ludicrous parody of the real thing".  Still his London Assembly did give £100,000 to help organize London Pride,  which is great.






The Telegraph published a story late last night in which Lynne Featherstone, the equalities minister, told us that the coalition government was considering allowing same-sex couples to include key religious elements in civil partnership ceremonies, she wrote in a parliamentary answer that 'homosexual couples could be permitted to use “religious readings, music and symbols”' 


Which is good news,  well sort of,    but, hey, let's not jump ahead of ourselves here, this is by no means a green light to equality and gay marriage!     Nope, all that is happening here is a government response to an amendment question in parliament and a confirmation that the government is going to talk to a few people about the possibility of including religious sayings, hymns and crosses in civil partnerships - which at the moment is prohibited. It's not gay marriage, it's not equality, it's a long way short, in fact, if and this is a very big IF, it gets the go ahead, the law civil partnership law would need to be changed, and I don't see that happening,  but if it does,   it could very well cause a backlash against the GLBT community and put gay marriage further away than it currently is.   You see,  heterosexual couples entering a civil marriage are not allowed, by law, to have religious statements, hymns or symbols,  so giving more rights to gay people isnt going to go down too well,  I'm sure.




Chris Bryant the Labour MP who tabled the amendment question, believes the government will eventually have to allow full gay marriage rather than creating the unusual situation under which same-sex couples can have religious language in their civil partnerships, but heterosexuals cannot in civil marriage. Peter Tatchell said “Instead of tinkering with the second-class system of civil partnerships, the Government should bring forward legislation to legalise same-sex marriage.”


Gay Tory MP Nick Herbert spoke to PinkNews at London Pride this afternoon and said this on the subject - "As far as I’m concerned, if it’s a civil partnership, I regard it as marriage. It has all the same legal status of a marriage. David Cameron has said that he thinks gay marriage is something we should look at in time… it’s a question of the words – should we call a civil partnership a marriage? But we’re already saying we’ll look at allowing civil partnerships to have some religious element to them and we’re also allowing churches that allow civil partnerships to do so as part of the law change. So you’re seeing that the debate is moving, but I think for a lot of us, we regard civil partnerships as marriages."




London Pride itself is being hailed as massive  success, Lynne Featherstone who was at the parade and spoke at the rally in Trafalgar Square wrote this on her blog ' Just back from the Pride march - what an amazing event - what a wonderful day!  There is something so empowering, so overwhelming - about marching, expressing - having a demonstrative voice. So much of the time there appears a passivity - as if nothing can be done, nothing can change. But from the Stonewall riots 40 years to today's Pride march in the London sunshine - every gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans individual that has had the courage to stand up against prejudice and fight discrimination - has shown the courage and determination that can change and has changed the world."


The weather was kind, clear blue skies have dominated much of the day and the mood of over a million people was as bright as the sun that shone down on the streets of our beloved capital city. Even the appearance of between 15 and 30 religious protesters didn't dampen the spirits of those marching by, who mostly ignored them and their placards.  Today is all about celebration and the party is still going on and will be for some time to come!