Campaign for Homosexual Equality
CHE logo
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| Founded | 1964 |
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| Founder | Allan Horsfall and Colin Harvey |
| Location | |
| Origins | Homosexual Law Reform Society |
| Website | www |
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Formerly called
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North Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee |
The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) is one of the oldest gay rights organisations in the United Kingdom. It is a membership organisation which aims to promote legal and social equality for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals in England and Wales. CHE was one of the two main English gay rights organisations of the 1970s, along with the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), but during the 1980s organisations such as Stonewall and OutRage! became more influential. CHE had 2,800 members and 60 local groups by 1972. At its peak in the middle 1970s it was claiming 5,000 members and some 100 local groups. By the 1990s its membership had diminished. CHE's activities included pressing for law reforms, providing educational material for use in schools, and attempting to influence the provision of medical, psychiatric and social services. Since the 1980s, CHE has continued to campaign, although with reduced membership the range of its activities have been greatly reduced.
CHE 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 in 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, which in 1967 had already fallen out with Antony Grey of HLRS/Albany Trust over the northerners' wish to press ahead with the establishment of gay clubs, felt on the contrary 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)).
Among CHE's leading members in this period were the writer and broadcaster Ray Gosling and the academic Michael Steed.
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Wikipedia