Clause 28 sparked by tabloid fuelled paranoia
1987
Cllr Steve Bedser explained the background to Clause 28.
“Clause 28 was sparked from tabloid paranoia, constantly talking about ‘loony left’ authorities in London, Islington, and Camden, the places that created people like Ken Livingstone, who is now applauded as being one of the most successful strategic leaders of a capital city in the world. There was a book, which was really the red rag to the section 28 lobby, called ‘Jenny lives with Eric and Martin’, which was a children’s photo story, explaining about a little girl living with her same sex parents, in a way that today would be completely uncontroversial. It actually prompted the bigots to try to change the law, to legislate, to stop being able to talk about lesbians and gay men as positive and equal people.
All that pernicious homophobic background reached a crescendo, here in Birmingham because Dame Jill Knight, the Edgbaston MP, was one of the Tory back benchers who sponsored what became Section 28 of the Local Government Act which Michael Howard, the Local Government Minister in 1987, was taking through Parliament. They tabled an amendment that asserted that a Local Authority should not be empowered to intentionally promote homosexuality and pretended family relationships. Basically it created a climate of fear in schools, although I don’t think there was ever a prosecution from Clause 28, but there was this paranoid self-censorship to stop teachers talking about LGB in even the vaguest positive terms.”
Contributed by: Steve Bedser, 41