These statistics clearly demonstrate the impact that Clause 25 is going to have on thousands of gay men in Britain. Nor is it simply the prospect of harsher penalties, inevitably involving prison sentences, which has so alarmed the lesbian and gay community. It is the insidious and outrageous equation of consensual homosexual offences with crimes such as rape that gives an added ideological edge to the proposed legislation. The idea that victimless "crime" such as "indecency between men" in which both parties are perfectly willing, should be placed in the same legal category as such a serious violation of a woman's bodily integrity and self-determination as rape, underlines to the point of absurdity the distorted value system of capitalist society and further contributes to the continuing conceptual and actual criminalization of the lesbian and gay community.
The response of the lesbian and gay movement to these proposals was immediate and diverse. It has ranged from polite lobbying of the government by the Stonewall Group, symbolic direct action from the group Outrage, attempts to rally labour movement opposition to the measures by the Labour Campaign for Lesbian reflects the diversity and fragmentation of the British lesbian and gay movement, but it has not been without its successes.
The withdrawal of three, relatively minor, homosexual offences from the Bill by the government is a small victory and now several key amendments have been tabled by the Labour Party, in line with its comprehensive official policy in support of full equality for lesbians and gay men. The first, which has been endorsed by the Labour leadership, is simply to remove the three consensual acts from the Bill. A slightly stronger amendment backed by left Labour MPs such as Ken Livingstone and Tony Benn would effectively remove the threat of prison sentences for all consenting sexual offences - heterosexual and homosexual - committed by persons from the age of 16 upwards. However, it is unclear whether the Labour Party will exert discipline on their MPs to vote either for or against the amendments.
No place for equal rights
A government measure which has received altogether less attention, despite the fact that its ideological consequences are more far reaching than Clause 25, is Paragraph 16 of the draft Guidelines on Fostering. These were issued for consultathe Department of Health just before Christmas, and declare that "...the chosen way of life of some adults may mean that they would not be able to provide a suitable environment for the care and nurture of a child...'Equal rights' and 'gay rights' policies have no place in fostering services."
These Guidelines are not legally binding. Local authorities must have regard to them in drawing up and carrying out their fostering policies, but do not have to follow them. However, as in so many similar instances, particularly in the area of lesbian and gay equality, it is likely that local authorities will take such government advice unless there is a substantial and public campaign on the issue. As with Section 28 of the Local Government Act, if councils are not actively pressured they will needlessly self-censor. The effect of the paragraph, if it is implemented by local authorities, will be to exclude lesbians and gay men from consideration as foster parents, simply because of their sexuality, rather than being judged on the same rigourous criteria as other potential
This will have a far from negligible impact as a considerable number of lesbians and gay men do foster and growing numbers are applying. The very many children in local authority institutions, looking for foster homes, gives this measure a twofold detrimental effect.
The thin end of the wedge
There will also be a much wider, ideological, impact, which will be strengthened but will not depend on the actual implementation of the paragraph by local