LONDON, February 23  –  A British tabloid Sunday newspaper could find itself in trouble over an article, by Nigel Nelson, under the headline ‘Fury Over Kids Gay-Levels’ and the renaming of Shakespeare to ‘Shakesqueer’.

Gay-Levels is a play on ‘A-Levels’, the exam taken by youngsters as they complete school at 18 years old.

Schools Out, the group behind the groundbreaking LGBT History Month, today hit back at homophobic attacks when they made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about the article in The People newspaper.

The full page homophobic attack, printed on Sunday 16 January, dismissed the idea of teaching gay history as ‘bizarre’, and became fixated over Shakespeare being ‘a fairy’.

‘The article was deeply offensive in the way it systematically attacked the dignity of lesbians and gay men,” said Nigel Tart, a spokesperson for Schools Out.

“Their ‘Best of Shakesqueer’ included titles like All’s Well That Bends Well and A Mid-Bummer Night’s Dream – and then they had the nerve to accuse us of ‘rewriting history’!”

Mr Tart went on to counter the article’s obsession with children’s ‘innocence’:  “Homophobia is blighting our schools. There is evidence to show it begins in primary schools, yet the People chose to cynically exploit their readers’ ignorance and prejudice’,” he said.

In addition to appearing in the print edition of the People, the article was also published on the paper's internet site.  In common with other articles from that issue, it is no longer available on-line.

The Government is supporting this month's LGBT History Month and gave a modest cash grant to enable Schools Out to develop its website.

The underlying aim of LGBT History Month is to let schoolchildren know that in history there have been some famous people who have been gay.  In turn, this could well help to address the real concerns of homophobic bullying in schools.

In their letter of complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, a “self-regulatory” body, Schools Out observes:  “We are surprised that your procedures do not allow for a more wide-ranging investigation of a newspaper and its attitudes than the consideration of individual offending articles. The scope of your guidance and the wilful way in which it is ignored by certain media organisations suggests to us that as racist abuse becomes unacceptable a new target has to be found and another prejudice, homophobia, indulged.”

A copy of the letter has also been sent to Tessa Jowell, the Minister for Culture, Media and Sport.

LINKS

Schools Out website

23  February  2005