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Friday 16 May 2008

IDAHO a go-go!

Tomorrow is the International Day Against Homophobia – IDAHO for short – and commemorates the day in 1990 that the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

According to IDAHO-UK, thousands of people in Britain and millions worldwide are expected to mark the day, which has activities ranging from the launch of an LGBT group for elderly people in Belfast to a wreath-laying by trade unionists for those executed in Iran for being gay.

Derek Lennard, IDAHO-UK coordinator, said, “I would like to wish campaigners and supporters in the UK and abroad a happy IDAHO day for 17 May. As befits a campaign in the UK, it will be marked in a wide variety of ways, with gravitas, concern, determination, wit and irony.”

Tomorrow, campaigners in Plymouth will be assembling their floats, which celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Rainbow Flag. A lesbian in Leicester will begin the task of judging the winner of an IDAHO cake competition.

The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) is to host a meeting at Amnesty International Human Rights Centre in London, which will explore the rights of LGBT people at home and abroad.

In Scotland, campaigners have designed posters under the categories of asylum, justice and human rights under the heading “Love is for everyone, everywhere”.

Also as part of IDAHO, the Lesbian and Gay National Archives have called a conference to reflect and remember the much-hated and oft-ridiculed Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which forbade the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities, while an exhibition in Lewisham recalls the decriminalisation of homosexuality in “1967 and all that”.

But there’s more. See our previous post and the IDAHO events webpage.

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