Campaign for Homosexual Equality
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) is a national gay rights organisation in the United Kingdom which aims to promote legal and social equality for lesbians, gays and bisexuals.
It grew out of the North Western branch of the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS), the North Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee (NWHLRC).
NWHLRC was founded in Manchester by Allan Horsfall and Colin Harvey in 1964. The formal launch took place at a public meeting on 7 October 1964 at Church House, Deansgate, Manchester.
After the Sexual Offences Act 1967 came into force, the London-based Homosexual Law Reform Society was thought by many to have achieved its aims.
The NWHLRC, on the contrary, felt that much remained to be done, and named itself the Committee for Homosexual Equality (CHE) in 1969 with a view to becoming a national body for England and Wales (in close co-operation with its counterpart north of the border, the Scottish Minorities Group (SMG)). At the same time it started to become a more radical organisation, concerned not only with further law reform but also with fighting the discrimination, prejudice and social isolation faced by many gay people.
In 1971 CHE's name changed once more, to the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE). It raised money to employ full-time paid staff and it set out to become a fully democratic "bottom-up" membership organisation. Its Executive Committee was directly elected by the whole membership. This set it (and SMG) apart from other mainstream gay organisations which were, and in general still are, "top-down" operations run by an unelected elite.
CHE's activities included canvassing for further law reforms, providing educational material for use in schools, and attempting to influence the provision of medical, psychiatric and social services.
CHE was the main British homophile organisation of the 1970s. It had 2,800 members and 60 local groups by 1972. At its peak in the middle 1970s it was claiming 4,000 members and some 100 local groups.
In 1973 CHE held the first national gay rights conference in Morecambe.
The International Gay Association was founded during the CHE conference in Coventry on 8 August 1978.
CHE's local groups throughout England and Wales were often highly independent, producing their own newsletters giving details of social and campaigning activities in their own area.
Local groups and members had input into CHE policy through the National Council, which met quarterly at different venues through the country, and was composed of CHE members elected by the whole membership. Annual conferences were also held; these were major, multifaceted events covering a long bank holiday weekend and can be seen in hindsight as key moments in the struggle for gay rights in Britain. The annual conferences in Sheffield (1975) and Southampton (1976) were each attended by some 1,000 members.
The national organisation later decided that the running of local groups was no longer part of CHE's core function — a decision that was by no means universally supported by the membership. Thereafter many of the local groups continued as independent bodies, often with names such as "The xxx Area Gay Society". Following the splitting off of the local groups, CHE gradually ceased to be a mass-membership organisation, and other groups such as Stonewall and OutRage! have become more prominent in the UK campaign for gay rights, though they still lack the grassroots democratic constitution pioneered by CHE.
CHE produced a national newsletter from 1969-1971: this gave rise to the CHE Bulletin, which ran from 1971 to 1974; from 1975 to 1976 CHE published the CHE Broadsheet.
Between 1976-1977 a newspaper called Out was produced.
The CHE Magazine Working Party (set up in 1971) produced Lunch from 1971-1974.
CHE created the counselling group Friend, which later became independent.
[edit] National Friend
Friend was set up in the London, England in 1971 as a Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) taskforce intended to become CHE's counselling arm.
By the end of the year Friend had become a separate national counselling and befriending organisation. As the London-based organisation began to spread across the UK, and local groups grew up, the whole network began to be known as National Friend.
It was incorporated as a limited company in 1987 with the name of National Friend Ltd.
National Friend became a network of groups whose volunteers provided information, support and befriending to lesbians, gay men and bisexual people. Local groups were affiliated to National Friend, though they remained autonomous within agreed guidelines, which included a constitution, code of ethics, code of practice, an equal opportunities programme and a complaints procedure.
In 1995 there were 31 local groups calling themselves either Friend or Gay Switchboard.
The National Committee supports the local groups, provides guidance, advertises the work of Friend to outside agencies and hold conferences on subjects of mutual interest.
In 1998, a grant from the National Lottery Charities Board enabled the development of a permanent office in Birmingham where two members of staff deal with administration, publicity and fundraising.
[edit] Archives
- Catalogue of the papers of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.
[edit] References
 |
This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations. |
