Hansard

I thank the 30 or so members who added their names in support of the motion.

Few people these days accept Henry Ford's view that all history is bunk. Most members will agree that there is great cultural value in the teaching of history. That holds for the history of minority groups in society as well, both because it gives them a sense of the development of their own community and because it benefits wider society. That is part of the purpose of LGBT history month.

One of the last things that I did in my previous job was to create an historical timeline exercise for youth workers, helping to train them on supporting young people coming out. I found references from as early as 8,000 BC right up to the present day, spanning the world's cultural diversity from ancient references, within the world's oldest known written story of Gilgamesh for instance, to examples in the Chinese and Indian cultures, the Greeks—naturally—and the beginnings of formalised legal oppression in Europe's middle ages.

In this year when we mark 300 years since the Act of Union, I will risk mentioning King James VI of Scotland and I of England. James, who commissioned what we now call the authorised version of the Bible and to whom it is dedicated, is one of those characters whose sexuality has not always been recognised by historians. However, it was remarked at the time of his accession to the English throne that

"Elizabeth was King: now James is Queen".

It was also noted with some scorn by one writer that

"The love the King showed men was amorously conveyed as if he had mistaken their sex and thought them ladies, which I have seen Somerset and Buckingham labour to resemble in the effeminateness of their dressings".

The crudeness of that description obscures the human feelings involved. By the end of James's life, he spoke of his love for George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in terms of marriage—centuries before civil partnership:

"I desire only to live in this world for your sake … I had rather live banished in any part of the earth with you, than live a sorrowful widow's life without you".

In more recent times we have seen the hypocrisy that masqueraded as Victorian morality and the celebration and condemnation of Oscar Wilde—a moment when same-sex love dared to speak its name and was brutally punished for doing so. We have seen the beginnings of the emancipation movement, particularly in pre-war Germany, and eventually we saw decriminalisation in the United Kingdom after the Wolfenden report, although more than 20 years passed between its publication and decriminalisation reaching Scotland. Now, we see the steady erosion of the swathes of discriminatory legislation and practice in society. That has been driven partly by the legislators and partly by the activists inspired by events such as the Stonewall riot—a response to the police raids that were still occasionally known in this country even in the 1990s.

We have come far—further than many would have predicted even a few decades ago—but have we reached equality? Even if we have, it does not quite count as the end of this history. I remember using the timeline exercise that I mentioned with a group of LGBT young people who were shocked and puzzled at the concept that their sexuality could ever have been a criminal offence. At the time, I could not decide whether it was good that they were growing up without that concept in their heads. On balance, I would say that it is good, but young people have a right to learn about it in the context of history.

I remember my shock on learning about the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of the second world war. The hair stood up on the back of my neck when I learned that, when the camps were finally liberated, the few homosexuals still left alive were rounded up by the allies and re-imprisoned. It was shocking, but is it more shocking that I was never told? All school students learn something about the horror of the Nazi persecution and mass murder in the middle of the previous century, but very few learn about that fact. Such airbrushing of history—deleting or ignoring aspects of people's lives or even of major world events—diminishes history for us all. That is why we have a programme of events around Scotland for LGBT history month. If history has been airbrushed and if events and people have been left unrecorded, we should remember the words of Oscar Wilde:

"The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it."

I am pleased to acknowledge that the Scottish Executive supports the programme of events. I am pleased, too, that many members have stayed to debate it with us. The Parliament has also made its mark on LGBT history in Scotland, repealing section 2A before the rest of the UK repealed section 28 and in so doing facing down those who wished to turn their prejudice into one of the first major battles of devolution.

That has been the story in more recent years. With every step forward that we have taken towards a society that is more at ease with its own healthy and natural diversity, a small but vocal group has sought to cling to every last shred of discrimination and prejudice, as I am sorry to say is happening again down south even as we speak.

It is greatly to be welcomed that political leaders across the spectrum in all parties are now committed to equality for all in society. That does not mean that there is no more work to do. There is more work to do, such as making good on promises to outlaw hate crime, for example, which many people had hoped the Executive would do in this parliamentary session.

I hope that, if members take away nothing else, they will take away a mental note to return to their parties and examine the commitments that are being made for the coming election, to ensure that the next session of the Scottish Parliament continues to make history for LGBT communities in Scotland.