Correspondence: Not Keeping The LGBT Campaign Record Straight
24 November 2017
To The Editor
It has recently come to my
knowledge that the successful litigant in an important European Human Rights
case has stated in a special position paper regarding Northern Ireland
political parties and LGBT Rights that:
[W]hen it mattered, not a political party in Northern Ireland, not even the virtue?signalling Sinn Fein and Alliance parties, gave any assistance in the long and bitter campaign to decriminalise homosexuality.- Jeffrey Dudgeon Position Paper for Policy Exchange 2017
At the risk of provoking the ire of the author for inaccuracy and since the person is no longer here to defend himself—I would suggest that the late professor Kevin Boyle who had been a prominent member of Peoples Democracy (now Socialist Democracy) played a not inconsiderable role in the campaign to decriminalize homosexuality, given that Boyle had suggested the idea of taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights. Moreover, after the idea was accepted by the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association - that Jeffrey Dudgeon be the litigant - Kevin Boyle then became a member of his legal team.
Yours
Gerry Fitzpatrick