Peter Tatchell Grill

Peter Tatchell has been campaigning for human rights, democracy, LGBT freedom and global justice since 1967. The questions ranged from his invasion of the Vatican Embassy, Eurovision being won by a transvestite,  the current state of life in Ukraine, where he reluctantly accepted freedom would continue to be denied, the inequality of same gender and different gender marriages,  to what he thought was his greatest triumph and where he saw his career going. He described in some detail the by-election he fought as the Labour Party candidate in Bermondsey against Simon Hughes which was considered at the time, and many believe still was, the dirtiest election of all time. His brushes with Robert Mugabe’s minders, first in London where he carried out a citizen’s arrest and then later in Belgium where he was knocked unconscious by them, were spell binding accounts of his experience.

He was pushed by David on how he could believe in freedom but not support people being allowed privacy in their private lives and David cited the outing of 10 Church of England Bishops in 1994. Peter’s reply was that they were defending the Church’s line against homosexuality while practicing it themselves but would not accept the argument that like Cabinet Ministers they were obliged to accept collective responsibility for decisions they personally disagreed with, or resign.

 A power and informative session that overrun and left everyone impressed with a man many agreed was right about more things in the past than they had thought then.

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