How To Say It?

Swift

Written by James Randi

Sunday, 21 March 2010 12:37

Well, here goes. I really resent the term, but I use it because it’s recognized and accepted. I’m gay. From some seventy years of personal experience, I can tell you that there’s not much “gay” about being homosexual. For the first twenty years of my life, I had to live in the shadows, in a culture that was — at least outwardly — totally hostile to any hint of that variation of life-style. At no time did I choose to adopt any protective coloration, though; my cultivation of an abundant beard was not at all a deception, but part of my costume as a conjuror. Gradually, the general attitude that I’d perceived around me began to change, and presently I find that there has emerged a distinctly healthy acceptance of different social styles of living — except, of course, in cultures that live in constant and abject fear of divine retribution for infractions found in the various Holy Books… In another two decades, I’m confident that young people will find themselves in a vastly improved atmosphere of acceptance. Before publishing this statement, I chose to privately notify a number of my closest friends and colleagues — none of whom, I’m sure, have been at all surprised at this “coming out.” I’m prepared to receive the inevitable barrage of jeers and insults from the “grubbies” out there who will jump to their keyboards in glee to notify others of their kind about this statement, which to them will be yet further proof of the perfidy of the rationalist mode of life that I have chosen. Those titters of joy will be unheard over the murmur of acceptance that I confidently expect from my friends. This declaration of mine was prompted just last week by seeing an excellent film — starring Sean Penn — that told the story of politician Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. I’m in excellent company: Barney Frank, Oscar Wilde, Stephen Fry, Ellen DeGeneres, Rachel Maddow, are just a few of those who were in my thoughts as I pressed the key that placed this on Swift and before the whole world… I should apologize for having used Swift as the venue to publish this note, an item that is hardly the focus of what we promote and publish here, but I chose the single most public asset I have to make this statement. It’s from here that I have attacked irrationality, stupidity, and irresponsibility, and it is my broadest platform. Here is where I have chosen to stand and fight. And I think that I have already won this battle by simply publishing this statement. Note: To hear an extensive discussion of this issue, please listen to my appearance on For Good Reason.

Religious education teacher paid for boy to have tattoo during week-long relationship

• Helen Carter
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 14.37 GMT
• Article history

A religious education teacher who admitted 10 charges of engaging a 15-year-old pupil in sexual activity has been jailed today.

Madeleine Martin, 39, of Knutsford, Cheshire, admitted beginning a week-long relationship with the boy, who was under 16 at the time, when she appeared in court in September.

Today she was sentenced to 32 months in prison at Manchester Minshull Street crown court. Martin was also suspended from her job at a Greater Manchester school, which cannot be named for legal reasons.

The court was told that Martin had qualified as a teacher four years ago and first met her victim in September 2008.

The pair began communicating via the Facebook social networking website and their contact escalated into a sexual relationship.

On 9 February she asked the boy to do something that would remind him of her when they were apart. She drove him to a tattooist and paid for him to have "Mad" and a heart etched onto his skin.

They then drove to a secluded area, where they had sex. The boy quickly decided to end their involvement and told Martin.

He eventually told his mother what had happened and she immediately reported the matter to police in April.

Judge Jonathan Geake told her: "It is clear that your life came to a very low ebb. Unhappily it was against that background that you were trusted with mentoring this young teenage boy who himself was vulnerable in the sense that he was having his own difficulties at school.

"It is clear from the way in which the prosecution presented that case that rather than mentor him in the proper way, you used him as an emotional support and comfort for yourself rather than the other way round.

"You started to abuse the trust you were entrusted with. Eventually you lured him into intimacies which should never have happened and which you now admit should never have happened."

Mark Fireman, in mitigation, said his client had brought "shame on herself and her family" and had lost her career, and her friends. He said at the time of sexual contact she was going through a "very difficult time in her personal life". Her relationship with her husband had ended, and her sister was suffering from terminal cancer and eventually died.

"The matter left her extremely depressed and perhaps vulnerable to thoughts and actions that would not have normally have taken place."

He added: "It is an incident that she bitterly, bitterly regrets. She knows that she has caused great harm."

In a victim impact statement, the boy said he had been taunted by his fellow pupils and had not returned to the school. He also said he was embarrassed to show people the tattoo Martin had encouraged him to get. His mother told the court that her relationship with her son had suffered, and that he had become lethargic and lost interest in his hobbies. She added: "He has lost the sparkle he always had."

Outside court, Detective Sergeant Dave Moores of Tameside Child protection unit said: "Martin's actions will leave emotional scars on her victim and his family and have also impacted on the wider community.

"I would like to praise the bravery of the victim in speaking out and ensuring justice was done for him.

"I am satisfied that she has been given the sentence she deserves and hope this will send a strong message that this behaviour will not be tolerated."

He added that Martin would remain on the sex offenders' register.

Exclusion of heterosexual couples challenged

Bid for civil partnership equality backed by Peter Tatchell

London, UK – 23 November 2009

A London straight couple, Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle, plan to challenge the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships by filing an application at Islington Registry Office in London this Tuesday, 24 November at 10.30am.

They want “heterosexual equality.”

The denial of civil partnerships to straight couples is, they say, “discriminatory and perpetuates legal inequality.”

Doyle and Freeman expect to be turned down by the registrar but they plan to get the refusal in writing, with view to taking legal advice and appealing the refusal.

“If necessary, we are ready to take our appeal all the way to the European Court of Human Rights,” said Mr Freeman and Ms Doyle.

The couple’s equality bid is backed by the gay rights group OutRage! and by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. He will join them on 24 November when they give notice of their civil partnership at Islington Town Hall’s Registry Office.

Mr Tatchell commented:

“We are against both homophobic and heterophobic laws. In a democratic society, everyone should be treated equally. There should be no legal discrimination. The ban on same-sex civil marriage and on opposite-sex civil partnerships is a form of sexual apartheid. It is one law for straight couples and another law for gay partners. Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said.

Outlining the reasons why they decided to opt for a civil partnership instead of marriage, Katherine Doyle said:

“We have been together for three and a half years and would like to formalise our relationship. Because we feel alienated from the patriarchal traditions of marriage, we would prefer to have a civil partnership. As a mixed-sex couple, we are banned by law from doing so. By filing an application for civil partnership, we are seeking to challenge this discriminatory law.

“Our decision is also motivated by the fact that we object to the way same-sex couples are prohibited from getting married. If we got married we would be colluding with the segregation that exists in matrimonial law between gay civil partnerships and straight civil
marriage. We don't want to take advantage of civil marriage when it is an option that is denied to our lesbian and gay friends,” she said.

Doyle and Freeman will be giving notice of their intention to form a civil partnership at 10.30am, on Tuesday 24th November 2009 at Islington Registry Office, Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, London, N1 2UD

Tom Freeman (25, civil servant) said:

“We want to secure official status for our relationship in a way that supports the call for complete equality and is free of the negative connotations of marriage.

“If we cannot have a civil partnership, we will not get married. On a point of principle, we will remain unmarried until opposite sex couples can have a civil partnership and same-sex couples can have a civil marriage.

“We are taking this stand against discrimination and in support of legal equality for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

“The ‘separate but equal’ system which segregates couples according to their sexuality is not equal at all. All loving couples should have access to the same institutions, regardless of sexuality. There should be parity of respect and rights,” he said.

Katherine Doyle (25, civil servant) added:

“We don’t like the institution of marriage. We would much prefer a civil partnership. It is time there was full legal equality, with both civil marriage and civil partnerships open to gay and straight couples. We want a choice and all other couples should also have a choice, irrespective of their sexuality.

“Just as lesbian and gay couples should be able to have a civil marriage, civil partnerships should be available to straight couples who don’t like the institution of marriage,” she said.

Under UK law, same-sex couples are banned from civil marriage and heterosexual couples are banned from civil partnerships (called civil unions in the US).

Mr Tatchell commented:

“The ban on heterosexual civil partnerships is heterophobic. It is disciminatory and offensive. I want to see it ended, so that straight couples like Tom and Katherine can have the option of a civil partnership.

“I applaud their challenge to this unjust legislation,” he said.

Labour misleads on Equality Bill 

Government ignores legitimate concerns 

Claims of consultation are untrue 

London - 8 October 2009

“It is very disappointing and disturbing to see the deputy Minister for Women and Equality, Maria Eagle MP, misleading the LGBT community over the Equality Bill. Her response to our concerns is woefully inadequate, She has made claims that do not stack up,” said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell of OutRage!

Mr Tatchell was reponding to a letter that he received from Ms Eagle, in reply to his letter to the Minister for Women and Equality Harriet Harman MP (copy below).

The Deputy Minister’s letter (full copy of key points below) claims:

The Government is clear that no one should suffer harassment because of their sexual orientation, and if someone feels they are being harassed they could bring a claim under the Equality Bill's discrimination provisions.

Mr Tatchell responded:

“The Equality Bill explicilty excludes protection against harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. Contrary to Ms Eagle’s assertions, this means that a LGBT person will not be able to bring an anti-harassment claim on these grounds under the Equality Bill. Harassment is different from discrimination and it requires separate legislative provision, as the government has recognised by giving explicit protection against harassment to women, black and disabled people, but not to LGBTs.”

The Deputy Minister’s letter further claims:

We consulted on the inclusion of an additional, specific harassment clause, but no one could produce any evidence of this being necessary because of the protections already in place.

Mr Tatchell responded:

“The government only consulted Stonewall, which does not provide hands-on assistance to individual victims of homophobic harassment. It did not consult the two LGBT groups who advise and assist the majority of cases of homophobic harassment, Galop and OutRage! Our practical experience shows that homophobic and transphobic harassment is widespread and is often perpetrated by bigoted neighbours on LGBT tenants and residents. Galop has many examples of this harassment and could have provided it to the government. Labour ministers ignored and sidelined Galop in its one-sided consultation process.”

The Deputy Minister’s letter further claims:

The Equality Bill has widened the definition of gender reassignment, so that transsexual people will now be protected in the gender that they permanently identify with, regardless of whether they are under medical supervision. In addition, the Bill extends protection to those who are discriminated against because they are thought of as transsexual. No one put forward evidence of the need to go further than this during the consultation.

Mr Tatchell responded:

"The Equality Bill only offers protection to those who have had, or who plan to have, gender reassignmment surgery. It doesn't protect gender variant or intersex people, nor people who identify and live as trans but who have decided to not have surgery. The claim that no one put forward evidence of the need for a wider definition is untrue. The Equality Network in Scotland made this point but its recommendations were arrogantly ignored by government ministers.”

The Deputy Minister’s letter further claims:

All schools are required to teach sex and relationship education in an appropriate and fair way - there is no exemption for faith schools.

Mr Tatchell responded:

“This statement is true for the moment, but it disguses the government’s future intentions. In April, Schools Secretary Ed Balls accepted proposals in a review by Sir Alasdair Macdonald. These proposals exempt religious schools from the government’s plan to tackle homophobic prejudice. They will be allowed to teach sex and relationship education in accordance with their own religious values and ethos, which often include the belief that gay people are sinners, unnatural, immoral and inferior human beings.”

See these press reports:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2009/04/30/gay-charities-express-concern-over-faith-school-sex-education-proposals/

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2009/04/28/faith-schools-to-be-allowed-to-tell-pupils-homosexuality-is-wrong/

The Deputy Minister’s letter further claims:

And the new public sector equality duty, which we have extended to cover sexual orientation for the first time, will further underline that it is unacceptable for schools to turn a blind eye to homophobic bullying.

Mr Tatchell responded:

“The Equality Bill contradicts the public sector equality duty. Under the Equality Bill, schools have no legal obligation to prevent the harassment of LGBT pupils, despite the pandemic of homophobic bullying. They are exempted from the anti-harassment clauses on the issues of homophobic and transphobic harassment.”

“In other public statements, the government has claimed that there is no need to include LGBT people in the anti-harassment sections of the Equality Bill because we are already protected under other legislation. Isn’t this also the case with women and black people? They are protected under other laws. Nevertheless, the government still included them in the Equality Bill, whereas LGBT people are excluded. Why have LGBTs been singled out for unique exclusion from this bill?"

“For the last year, the government has refused to say why other groups are included in the Equality Bill and LGBT people are not. Why can’t it give us a straight answer?” queried Mr Tatchell.

Letter from the deputy Minister for Women and Equality, Maria Eagle MP, to Peter Tatchell of OutRage!, dated 28 September 2009:

The key points in Ms Eagle’s letter are her claims:

1. Harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation

The Government is clear that no one should suffer harassment because of their sexual orientation, and if someone feels they are being harassed they could bring a claim under the Equality Bill's discrimination provisions. We consulted on the inclusion of an additional, specific harassment clause, but no one could produce any evidence of this being necessary because of the protections already in place. If evidence were to arise, we would seek to address this.

2. Protection from discrimination on grounds of gender identity

Previously transsexuals were only protected from discrimination if they had made contact with a doctor or councellor about wanting to change their sex. The Equality Bill has widened the definition of gender reassignment, so that transsexual people will now be protected in the gender that they permanently identify with, regardless of whether they are under medical supervision. In addition, the Bill extends protection to those who are discriminated against because they are thought of as transsexual. No one put forward evidence of the need to go further than this during the consultation.

3. Treatment of LGBT pupils in faith schools

All schools are required to teach sex and relationship education in an appropriate and fair way - there is no exemption for faith schools. And the new public sector equality duty, which we have extended to cover sexual orientation for the first time, will further underline that it is unacceptable for schools to turn a blind eye to homophobic bullying.

Peter Tatchell’s original letter to Harriet Harman MP, the Minister for Women and Equality:

Minister for Women & Equality
Cabinet Office
Whitehall, SW1

10 August 2009

Dear Harriet Harman,

Equality Bill

Below is a copy of a news release outlining OutRage's concerns regarding the explicit exclusion from the Equality Bill of protection from harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender reassignment - and other related matters.

1) I would be grateful to receive from you an explanation for these harassment clause exclusions. We do not believe that they are justified and urgently request a government amendment to remove them - for the reasons stated below.

2) We also request that the protections for gender reassignment be redefined to cover the broader category of gender identity - see the news release below.

3) Finally, we ask that the government remove the exemption of faith schools from the curriculum requirements regarding sex and relationship education, as explained below.

I would be grateful to hear from you as your earliest convenience.

Yours with appreciation and best wishes,

Peter Tatchell, OutRage!,

Equality Bill discriminates

LGBTs excluded from anti-harassment clauses

London – 10 August 2009

"The Equality Bill should be renamed the Inequality Bill. While other vulnerable groups are protected against harassment, protection is denied to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. We are explicitly excluded from the anti-harassment clauses of the bill," said Peter Tatchell of the LGBT human rights group OutRage!

“The government has failed to provide any rational, satisfactory explanation for this exclusion.

“This legislation is supposed to harmonise and standardise all equality laws, so that everyone has the same rights and protection. Sadly, it enshrines in law discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in clauses 28, 32, 33, 34 and 82.

“No LGBT group supports this discriminatory legislation, except Stonewall. It claims that homophobic and transphobic harassment are not significant problems and can be dealt with under existing legislation. If this argument is true, and harassment is already covered adequately under other existing legislation, why does the Equality Bill need to outlaw harassment on the grounds of age, disability, race and sex? Why does it specifically and uniquely exclude harassment on the grounds of gender reassignment and sexual orientation - and, in some instances, on the grounds of religion or belief? Why the differential treatment?

“Since this bill is intended to create a uniform legislative framework, all forms of harassment should be covered by its clauses. There should be no exemptions.

"As it stands, the Equality Bill denies protection against homophobic harassment by school authorities, by the owners and managers of properties and by the providers of services. Such harassment is outlawed on the grounds of age, disability, race, sex and in some instances on the grounds of gender reassignment. But in no case does it offer protection against harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation.

“This omission gives a green light to homophobes. They won't face sanctions for homophobic harassment under this proposed law.

“LGBT organisations like Stonewall and School’s Out are campaigning against homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools, some of which is perpetrated or tolerated by school staff according to a Stonewall survey of LGBT pupils.

“By excluding protection against harassment in schools on the grounds of gender reassignment and sexual orientation, this legislation is sending a signal to schools that the harassment of LGBT pupils need not be taken seriously.

“Exempting schools from the anti-harassment clauses is particularly shocking and unforgiveable, given the widespread bullying of LGBT pupils. We urge the government to amend the Equality Bill immediately.

"The legislation has an anti-transgender bias. Protection against harassment is restricted to those people who are proposing, or have undergone, gender reassignment, and transgender pupils in schools are excluded from the Bill’s anti-harassment protections.

“The definition of transgender is too narrow. Trans people who are not yet planning, or have not yet undertaken, gender reassignment are left unprotected by the Equality Bill. The legislation should be amended to give protection on the wider grounds of gender identity, not the narrow grounds of gender reassignment.

"The Equality Bill has the overall good intention of harmonising and equalising all equality laws, to create a level legislative playing field. But this positive goal is undermined by the government's simultaneous announcement that it plans to exempt faith schools from its action plan to tackle homophobic prejudice and bullying. They will be allowed to teach sex and relationship education in accordance with their own religious values, which often include the idea that gay people are sinners, unnatural, immoral and inferior human beings.

“Such values reinforce homophobia, which can lead to homophobic harassment, discrimination and violence," said Peter Tatchell of OutRage!

The discriminatory clauses of the Equality Bill:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmbills/131/09131.i-vii.html#top

Clause 28 - Provision of services – Ban on discrimination, harassment and victimisation

Clauses 32, 33 and 34 - Disposal and management of premises by landlords and freeholders etc. – Ban on harassment

Clause 82 - Schools – Ban on harassment

Peter Tatchell
OutRage! – The LGBT Human Rights Campaign

Fri, Oct 2, 2009

Image: Europics

Watch out Barbie and Ken, Marge and Homer and all you Disney princesses! There’s now Wendell and Cass, Roy and Silo and many others giving competition to heterosexual coupledom. One look at the animal world is enough to prove that being gay, bi or a gender bender is no big deal. It’s just that a few straight-laced humans get their knickers all in a twist when thinking of the many famous gay animal couples…

Take Ninio for example, a 10-year old African elephant in a zoo in Poznan, Poland who enraged local politicians earlier this year over his preference for hanging out with his mates rather than mating with the ladies.

“We didn’t pay 37 million zlotys ($11 million) for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there,” said an enraged Michal Grzes of Poland’s opposition party Law and Justice.

Ninio, the little elephant who wouldn’t:

Image via towleroad

His offence? Hitting female elephants with his trunk while being affectionate to the males. Given that male elephants reach maturity at around 10 years of age, Ninio is going through his teenage years. And his behaviour doesn’t sound so different from a species we know.

In the wild, elephant males live apart from the general herd (read: women and children) and form companionships that include sexual behaviour like mounting, kissing and trunk intertwining.

Those in charge, quick to label Ninio gay, don’t seem to take these facts into account. Ninio, who has already changed three zoos because of his behaviour, has been separated from the other animals, all the while attracting sympathetic visitors once his story went popular.

I heart you:

Image via themonastery

But he’s not alone. According to Bruce Bagemihl’s ground-breaking book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (1999), about 1,500 species from primates to worms display same-sex sexual behaviour; well documented for some 500 of them.

Especially among penguins, “gay” behaviour has created headlines over the years: Two male penguins at Polar Land in Harbin, northern China, became front-page news in December 2008 for stealing eggs from heterosexual penguin couples and replacing them with stones. The zoo reacted by separating them from the other penguins with a picket fence.

Fighting across the white picket fence:

Image: Europics

In response to angry visitors who deemed this treatment unfair, zoo keepers caved in: “We decided to give them two eggs from another couple whose hatching ability had been poor and they’ve turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo,” said one of them.

Wendell and Cass, two African black-footed penguins at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island, Brooklyn, had lived happily together for many years, undisturbed, until genetic testing (the only way to tell a penguin’s sex) in 2002 confirmed that they were actually two males. This didn’t surprise zoo staff who had suspected the same but the press was all over the story, attributing Wendell and Cass a particularly clean and tidy nest, devotion and other humanising qualities. The penguins had met when they were 3 or 4 years old and stayed together for 7 years until Cass died.

Wendell and Cass:

Image via observationsofanerd

Roy and Silo, two male Chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo, met one fine spring day in 1998 at the water tank and decided to raise their offspring together – first an egg-shaped rock that they cared for, then another penguin’s egg. Their break-up in 2005 was highly popularised when Silo took off with a female penguin named Scrappy, leaving Roy to sit “disconsolately at the edge of the penguin area, staring at the wall.”

Chinstrap penguin with two chicks:

Image: NOAA

Dashik and Yehuda, two male vultures at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, didn’t know what the fuss was all about ten years ago when they became a couple and built a nest together. After incubating an artificial egg for 45 days, the zoo replaced it with a baby vulture and the two fathers raised the chick together.

Their relationship broke up after Yehuda fell for a new female vulture brought to the zoo. Dashik apparently became depressed and was moved to a different zoo but did build a nest with a female vulture eventually.

Fathers? Yes, we can be fathers:

Image: Gurdas Dua

What’s interesting about the stories is not so much the facts as the reaction to them. Animal relationships get labeled as fiery romances, steamy affairs and the like and the animals engaging in same-sex behaviour are called gay. However, as most examples show, many animal species happily switch between male and female partners without getting half as confused as we humans. Gay? Bisexual? Who cares! seems to be their motto.

But what would be their motivation? Nathan Bailey, a post-doctoral researcher at U.C. Riverside and his team found out in a recent study that same-sex sexual behavior in animals can be an adaptional strategy and a force. In bird colonies with an unequal ratio of females to males for example, two females pairing up provides an advantage when sharing parenting responsibilities.

In many species, homosexuality isn’t only common, it’s the norm. Male dolphins for example pair up and take care of each other. This care does include sexual behaviour and the occasional underwater orgy. They will still hook up with the females but only for mating season.

Dolphins, happy and gay:

Image via pixdaus

When it comes to matriarchal animal societies, female sexual behavior has puzzled researchers for ages. Female hyenas especially have confused scientists for centuries simply because they have a sex organ that looks like a penis – hence they were considered gender benders or even said to change their sex.

In hyena society, those animals exposed to the most testosterone fair best – usually female hyenas that tend to be larger and more aggressive than the males. The fact that female hyenas display what are traditionally called “male” traits in patriarchal societies and also engage in sex with each other didn’t help quell the scientists’ confusion one bit.

Gender bender? Me? Laughable:

Image via pixdaus

They should have just looked at the bonobo chimpanzees, another matriarchal society and some of our closest relatives, all uniformly bisexual and willing to get it on anytime, anywhere. Females lead the way with two-thirds of the same sex action performed by them, by the way.

Homosexuality in the animal kingdom has long been dismissed as unimportant by animal researchers but in view of the staggering facts, it can no longer be ignored. It is a fascinating phenomenon with a purpose depending on an animal group’s make-up, psychology and sexual needs. More and more scientists are trying to get their minds around the idea that sexual orientation doesn’t exist in the animal kingdom at all.

Bonobo kiss:

Image via animalphotos

Same-sex sexual behaviour sure isn’t as big a deal for our furry, feathered and other critter friends as it is for humans where homophobia is rampant. The harmless children’s book And Tango Makes Three (2005) by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell created a stir because it is about two male penguins raising a baby. A formal request for its removal was submitted so that the American Library Association had to put it on its “challenged list” for those materials questioned because of content or appropriateness.

What can we say? Maybe that sometimes such a well developed brain isn’t such a good thing? The male flour beetle, for example, an instinct-driven, rather plucky and pragmatic fellow, does whatever feels right without a care in the world. It’s been recorded that “male flour beetles are believed by scientists to engage in gay sex to practice mating as well as rid themselves of “old, less effective” sperm.”

Can’t argue with that.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

House music first gained popularity after the late 70's disco backlash. But rather than being just another dance fad, it became a way of life, as the Children's classic track proves

Even on dodgy DJ International and Trax pressings, early Chicago house still sounds fantastic. Futuristic, brutal, minimal and funky, it evokes moods that range from dreamy uplift (Fingers Inc's Mystery of Love), through drug-deranged, (Sleezy D's I've Lost Control, Phuture's Your Only Friend) to earthy (Maurice Joshua's I Gotta Big Dick) and the downright filthy (Professor Dick's Sensuous Woman Goes Disco).

Like disco during 1973/4, house originated in the latino/black/gay clubs. The most generally cited source is Frankie Knuckle's residency at Chicago's Warehouse between 1977-82. During that period, disco became a dirty word: from being a mainstream obsession – which it was in 1978 after Saturday Night Fever – it had been cast out to the fate that awaits all passé styles, with an added venom that many thought the result of homophobia.

But the impulse and the need that created disco hadn't gone away – it just went underground, into clubs such as the Warehouse (later renamed the Music Box). It then mutated in accordance with the electro music of the day, taking in Eurodisco such as Klein and MBO's Dirty Talk and the whole Kraftwerk/Afrika Bambaataa electronic/hip-hop connection. House was, as Knuckles told me for a 1989 Out of Tuesday documentary, "disco's revenge".

The Warehouse – as well as New York clubs such as Larry Levan's Paradise Garage and David Mancuso's The Loft – was a place where the outcast and the marginal could get together and feel secure. Once that was established, they could take drugs and go crazy to a music specifically designed to send them that way; a music so intense it would have sounded claustrophobic, were it not imbued with sufficient psychedelic space.

In the heat of the dance, all boundaries dissolved. As Ray Caviano, the king of the disco promoters, observed about Paradise Garage, "It was a mixture and a variety of black gay and white gay; it was a coming together in a homogeneous blend in the fullest sense of the word." Knuckles remembered that "in Chicago all of a sudden it was fashionable to either be gay or act gay – a lot of straight people were doing this".

There were different strands in early house. Unsurprisingly, it was the uptempo version with wailing gospel-derived vocals that made the charts – most notably Farley "Jackmaster" Funk's Love Can't Turn Around. At the same time, there were several deeper records with a positive message derived from the civil rights struggle: Db's I Have A Dream, Mr Fingers' Distant Planet, and Joe Smooth's Promised Land.

These tended to be couched in fairly general terms, and explicit gay references are thin on the ground. Dr Derelict's founding house classic, 1984's Under Cover, is a brutally melodic dissection of a weekend freak who "keeps it in the closet", but it wasn't until 1987 - with a record by the Children (Chi slang for gay people) – that the topic close to the original house nation's heart was examined in a thoughtful, albeit circumspect manner.

Produced by Adonis Smith (well-known for No Way Back and Acid Poke), Freedom is a classic manifesto. It begins – as it means to go on – with a loud shout, a wake-up call, before resolving into a classic early acid patch of a simple yet heart-stopping drumbeat, counter-pointed tom-toms, phased handclaps, and a squelchy synth marking out a marching rhythm.

Deep breaths segue into Jamie Christopher's impassioned rap, all the more impressive because it's delivered in a quiet, determined tenor: "This is a song about freedom, good morning people, hello (hello), wake up, look around you, and what do you see?" His voice is psychedelically refracted, doubled, echoed and, on occasion, reduced to a subliminal whisper, but the words are forceful: "I see hatred, no acceptance to those who are different."

Although the word "gay" is not mentioned, it doesn't need to be: "I'm living my life for me, you live yours. Who cuts my hair? I have nothing to prove. I'm this way because I want to be. Can't you accept me for what I am? I never claimed to be a perfect man … don't judge me! Is this the freedom we fought for so long to achieve? I don't think so!"

"Freedom, that's what life's about": House wasn't a dance fad but a way of life. Liberation for one should be liberation for all, and this message of freedom was encoded in the music as it crossed the Atlantic. As it hit Shoom and the Hacienda, the crowd generously responded and the consequent euphoria was strong enough to pull British pop culture into an open, ecstatic mood for a few seasons.

The Children's song meant nothing in the States outside of a few clubs, but it was a big record in the early days of UK house. The Crucial Mix (slightly faster, with an added spacey synth melody) was a regular highlight of the Hacienda's 1987 Nude Nights. It was included on one of the most popular early comps, Jackmaster 1, where it sat somewhat uneasily next to Patrick Adams and the like.

It remains inspirational. Jamie Christopher's rap is poised between anger, hope and despair. "Freedom, let it ring", he intones near the track's end, echoing a phrase from Martin Luther King's famous I Have A Dream speech, delivered at the August 1963 March on Washington. He does so without any expectation that this desired state will be achieved in the immediate future.

Put together with the rush of the production and the music, it is this delicate balancing act – as well as the continued difficulties faced by many gay people – that makes Freedom resonate 20 years later. It's grounded in a harsh reality, yet a determined, hopeful spirit wins out: "We need to come together, I'm sure it can be done, divided as individuals, united as one."