Letter: Homosexual anger at 'patronising sneers'

Sir: Colin Welch ('A spokesman for which homosexuals?', 24 May) is right that the 'gay and lesbian community' is more an optimistic aspiration than a reality. But he is wrong in thinking that homosexual people have only one thing in common. We all have at least two things in common, the second being our experience of personal and social oppression because of our sexuality.

This can range from physical attack to verbal assault of a viciously hate-filled nature or the patronising sneers of a Colin Welch, to whom homosexuals are apparently acceptable only so long as they are 'quiet' and 'uncontentious'; experience their sexuality as 'a grievous burden'; are sad rather than gay; realise that they are 'poor fellows with less than others to go home to after the war'; in other words, we're OK so long as we don't get 'uppity'.

Well, I have news for Mr Welch. Although marching isn't much in my style, and did not commend itself to those of us who achieved the first steps towards law reform in the Sixties (when I was Secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society), his prejudiced piece impels me to suggest that an OutRage sit-in at your offices wouldn't be uncalled for. If Colin Welch were homosexual, he wouldn't write like that. I hope that if I were heterosexual, I wouldn't either.

Yours faithfully,

ANTONY GREY

London, NW2