Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association
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| Formation | 1979 |
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Chair
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Richard Unwin |
LGBT Humanists UK, founded in 1979, is a special interest section of Humanists UK which campaigns for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality and human rights in the United Kingdom. It also organises social events for LGBT humanists and public awareness initiatives around Humanism.
It was founded as a separate humanist organisation, the Gay Humanist Group, later the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA). It became a part of the British Humanist Association in 2012, and took on the name Galha LGBT Humanists before becoming LGBT Humanists UK in 2015. The British Humanist Association became Humanists UK in 2017.
In common with humanist associations around the world, the LGBT Humanists' logo has always contained a version of the Happy Human. For many years, its President was the poet Maureen Duffy, who became a Patron of the BHA when the organisations merged. As GALHA, the group was independently affiliated with the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) and the NGO Amnesty International. The group is led by volunteers and its current Chair is Richard Unwin. Past chairs include Andrew Copson, the chief executive of the BHA, who is also President of IHEU.
The Gay Humanist Group was founded in response to the Gay News 'blasphemy' trial, and worked to combat widespread prejudice and religious bigotry towards LGBT people in the UK, at a time when attitudes to homosexuality were still fairly negative on the whole. Since that time the organisation has played key roles in UK-wide campaigns for LGBT equality, particularly marriage rights for LGBT couples. The group had provided non-recognised humanist marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples since the 1980s, and coordinated a number of such ceremonies outside Parliament to inspire legislative action, which it credits with inspiring Mayor of London Ken Livingstone's London Partnership Register in 2001. This was in turn an inspiration for the 2005 Civil Partnership Act which preceded the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act in 2013.
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