Homophobia

In August I challenged my manager's homophobia and ended up being moved to a different hostel while my complaint was dealt with: she apparently did not mind me being gay - she knew I was when she employed me - but like so many homophobes, she objected to any instantiation of my gayness in my life at the hostel. In short, she objected to my leaving a copy of a gay magazine in the sitting room in the staff flat - in case visiting staff talked about us, she said. And then she objected to my showing the magazine Attitude - the issue with Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) on the cover - to a female member of staff who wanted to look at it.

Unfortunately, the girl was bullied (I suspect) into not making a statement, so my grievance was dropped. But I gather she is being heavily sat upon to rethink the views she expresses if not her views themselves. I luckily have been left at the hostel to which I was moved: had the organisation insisted I return to the original hostel, I would have refused and considered legal action.

And then, today, on the DNA (the Australian gay magazine) website, I saw an article about young gay men being executed in Iran for effectively just being gay, not even necessarily for sodomy. That puts my experience of homophobia into perspective, rather. But it makes it all the more important that we have a zero tolerance attitude to homophobia wherever we encounter it. What happened to me and what is happening to men in Iran is part of the same spectrum. My own experience, since I came out 30 years ago, only includes losing the occasional friend, being banned from preaching in local Methodist churches and this latest incident with my manager. Nothing compared to what was done to Alan Turing (although I underwent aversion therapy while I was at university because I took advice from a fellow student whose professional view as a probation officer and his Baptist christian faith combined to make me think I should and could be cured) and to these young Iranians but enough to convince me that silence is not an option.
Especially when I meet men who in their 30s or 50s who are not out and have to seek out all their gay friends and acquaintances in secret, terrified of being discovered.
And this is why, in conversation and in the pulpit, I regularly refer to my late partner. Not to do so would be a denial of our 20 years together and a betrayal of all those victims of homophobia far harsher than any experienced by me.