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3 unusual facts about Gay News


Gay News

It was described by Alison Hennegan (who joined the newspaper as Assistant Features Editor and Literary Editor in June 1977) as the movement's "debating chamber".

Amongst Gay News's early "Special Friends" were Graham Chapman of Monty Python's Flying Circus, his partner David Sherlock, and Antony Grey, secretary of the UK Homosexual Law Reform Society from 1962 to 1970.

Leslie Scarman, Baron Scarman

Although widely regarded as a liberal, he upheld the blasphemy conviction of Gay News (1979), punctured the GLC's Fares Fair low-cost public transport policy (1981), and supported the banning of trade unions at GCHQ (1985).


Barry Duke

In 1979, Duke was a founding member of the Gay Humanist Group, (now Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association) after Mary Whitehouse began a private prosecution for blasphemous libel against Gay News (see Whitehouse v Lemon.


see also