PINKY AND PERKY
Ross Clark on the positive discrimination
that dare not speak its name
YOU don't have to be Peter Tatchell, or even gay, to admit that there was a heroic stage in the struggle for gay liberation. In the days when policemen were stationed as agents provocateurs in lavatories along the Strand, there was a distinct whiff of Third Reichery about the British attitude towards homosexuality, and, as Matthew Parris revealed so eloquently in this maga- zine recently, the tables of the great and good are not entirely free from anti- homosexual paranoia even today.
But when the frontier of gay rights has shifted from the high ground of imprison- ment to the lowly business of who gets and who doesn't get a free bus pass, you really do wonder whether it isn't time to with- draw the tanks and savour the victory. There's scant sign of that, however. In the next couple of months the Equal Opportu- nities Commission is to unveil a new 'vol- untary code of conduct' for employers, suggesting ways in which they may take care to avoid discriminating against homo- sexuals. Such means include making sure that travel perks and relocation allowances available to spouses are also available to live-in homosexual lovers. Although this will be a voluntary code, there is an implicit threat that legislation is on the way. 'We know there is discrimination going on out there, and it's just a case of how best to tackle it,' says a spokesman for the Depart- ment for Education and Employment.
The government's drive for equal perks for homosexuals is the result of intense lobbying by Stonewall, the gay-rights pres- sure group. Stonewall has been fighting a campaign to eradicate bullying of homo- sexuals at work, for which it deserves to be applauded, but its case-list reveals that it is unable — or unwilling — to distinguish between the genuine refugees and the eco- nomic migrants of the gay world. For example, there's the case of 'Mark', whose homosexual lover was refused a relocation allowance when Mark's employer, a bank, moved to the West Midlands. And there's Gary Partridge, whose lover John Light was killed in the Soho nail-bombing, and who was refused a payment from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board although the husband of a woman killed in the blast received one. Stonewall believes it is close to forcing a change in the law on criminal compensation, thanks to this case.
The trouble with the homosexual lobby's victim culture is that it is one-sided, and fails to acknowledge the cases in which homosexuals appear to be getting a rather good deal. It is now illegal to discriminate against homosexuals in the workplace, yet the gay lobby has managed to negotiate a clause in the Employment Act enabling publicly subsidised 'HIV worker' jobs to be reserved for gays only. Much the same sort' of thing is happening in housing. Stonewall has taken up the case of the male bank worker denied a cut-price joint mortgage with his homosexual lover. At the same time, however, and with the help of coun- cil taxpayers, the pressure group runs a housing association, Stonewall Housing, whose properties are reserved for the exclusive use of gays and lesbians between the ages of 16 and 24.
The housing policies of local authorities are rich in sexual bias and double stan- dards. Now a new area of bias is emerging — in the matter of how local-authority housing is allocated. Local authorities, most of which in the South have a shortage of property, are obliged to allocate housing according to need. People with children or physical disabilities, for example, are pro- pelled up the waiting-list. But inner-Lon- don boroughs are giving gay couples precedence over single people. In one case two heterosexual girls who wanted to rent a flat were turned down — until they pre- tended to be lesbians. In another case a German girl managed to secure herself a council flat by pretending to be gay, bought it under the right-to-buy legislation, then promptly sold it and moved to Spain. One of the criteria according to which council 'You've had a breast job, haven't you?' property is allocated, says Geoffrey Bate- man of Islington Borough Council, is 'sexu- al needs'. What this doctrine seems to mean is that housing must be allocated on the basis of sexual orientation. But when Mr Bateman is asked whether this means that a homosexual couple may be given prece- dence over single people, he comes over all tetchy. 'I can't comment on that,' he says.
Fortunately, Tracey Nuthall, a 30-year-old nanny who has been on Islington's council- flat waiting-list for three years, is able to shed some light on how council flats are allocated. A council employee came round to inspect the bedsit she currently rents pri- vately and agreed that it was substandard; a flat would be found for her 'within two and a half years'. However, last autumn Tracey was told that Islington's policy had been revised and that she was unlikely to be granted a flat after all: one-bedroom flats were now going to 'couples'. Tracey was then surprised when an employee of the council quietly suggested to her that she put herself down on the list as a lesbian (which she is not). 'It won't do you any harm,' said the employee. 'There are cases where it has helped.'
It's not just local authorities that are guilty of discrimination, however. The entire benefits system is constructed in favour of homosexual couples. If you are a married couple or a cohabiting heterosex- ual couple on income support, you will receive a joint payment of £80.65 a week; if you are a homosexual couple, you will receive two single payments, amounting to £102.80 a week. If you are one half of a heterosexual couple and you apply for means-tested benefits, they will be reduced according to how much your partner earns; if you are one half of a homosexual couple, your partner's income will not enter the equation. 'Social-security law states that people of the same sex cannot be regarded as a couple,' says a spokeswoman for the Benefits Agency. And yet for some reason this is one area of discrimination which Stonewall is not keen to abolish.
The chief objection to equal perks for live-in lovers isn't homophobic; it is a desire to eliminate fraud. If you are mar- ried, you have consigned your relationship to the record, paid the church fees, and you can't get out of it just by loading your pos- sessions into the back of a Volkswagen Golf and driving off. Take two wives and you'll end up in the slammer for bigamy, but there's no law which prevents you co- habiting with several partners at once and declaring whichever one financial expedi- ency demands.
Perhaps the only solution is to allow British homosexuals to do what those bearded ones in Denmark charmingly do — get married. Give them the perks, but lumber them with the responsibilities and the divorce bills, too. There will be no shortage of divorce lawyers muscling in on the fickle world of gay relationships for a bite at the pink pound.
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