An Equal Love Case update.

David Watters introduces Matthew and Scott, who have challenged the ban on gay marriage.

Both Matthew and Scott feel that, as gay men, they are more in tune with the broader inequality issues of society and that their participation in the Equal Love campaign was inevitable.

19yr old defends his same sex union parentage.

19yr old student Zach Wahls defends his same-sex union parentage and warns against discrimination.

Wahls told the packed public hearings on Monday night that he has two mothers and that he’s no worse off for it.

The 1980s backlash: the 25th anniversary of the raid on Gay’s the Word bookshop

On April 10, 1984, ‘Operation Tiger’ went into effect. Customs and Excise officers walked into Gay’s the Word bookshop in London, told its customers to leave, and seized all imported titles.

At that time, Gay’s the Word was the only bookshop in the UK in which one could buy Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. Maupin’s books were amongst those seized, as were titles by Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams.

From Recipes to Pecs: A brief personal history of gay magazines

A look back at this history of gay magazines, and recollections of their importance of the coming out process, by Paul Baker.

Gay Times used to feature pictures of gay celebrities or icons on its front cover in the 1980s and early 1990s – can you imagine Jimmy Somerville getting on the front cover of GT now? By the mid 1990s a change was afoot and now the rules were that the front cover was always a meaty young orange torso, with almost every other issue featuring the word SEX in big bold capitals.

An historical timeline of gay magazines, from 1897 to 2008.

The first gay magazine, Der Eigene, was published in Germany in 1896. The medium has gone from politics and activism to pop and hard-core.

“The word magazine is an Arabic term for storehouse. Although periodicals had been published before, it was first used to describe a publication in 1731 with advent of the Gentlemen’s Magazine.”

An interview with Paul Baker, author of Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang.

Polari is a voice from another era, and is remembered best through the Round the Horne characters Julian and Sandy. Who better to explain the phenomenon than Paul Baker?

It’s important to remember the role Polari played in the lives of gay men and lesbians. It’s a testament to their creativity, humour and tenacity.