Last night on Carlton TV a London show called "Nightlife", one of the "After the Real Programmes Have Finished" type of thing, featured the usual chit chats with minor celebrities on the local scene.
This included Boy George, who is often credited with setting a pattern for enlightened attitudes to sexuality in the 1980s. Perhaps not wanting incisive debate and controversy, the interveiwer asked him how much things have improved for gays in the last two decades, to which he tersely replied "NOT AT ALL". He went on to say how he encounters now as much bigotry, prejudice, fear and tactlessness as ever in his past career.
This came as a bit of a surprise to me; I am not, personally, gay, and whilst recognising that endless problems will remain for some time, I had asumed that things had improved, just somewhat. So what does it mean ? That all the gay Police groups, all the sitcoms, dramas, magazines, male nudity and documentaries are mere propaganda, a chimera with no substance in the lives of most people in Britain outside Soho and the West End, (where I spend most of my time). Are the Metro Cosmopolitans now completely out of touch with people in general, a people who have failed to be convinced of the need for a tolerant society? If Boy George's observations are accurate, we need to ask some questions.