Rainbow celebration to mark IDAHOT day... at GCHQ!

[Resurgam]

I'd never heard of IDAHOT before this morning - apparently 17 May is International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia? At first I couldn't believe this GCHQ story when it was mentioned during a review of UK Sunday newspapers on the BBC but it seems to be true e.g. Mail on Sunday (hardly a bastion of tolerance) and the same picture is on GCHQ's own website at: http://www.gchq.gov.uk/press_and_media/news_and_features/Pages/rainbow-celebration-to-mark-IDAHOT-day.aspx

GCHQ is the UK equivalent to the NSA and it is the direct successor to the WWII era code-breaking station at Bletchly Park where Alan Turing famously broke the U-Boat Enigma Code and quite possibly saved the Allies from losing the Battle of the Atlantic if not the whole damn war. (IMHO Robert Harris' novel "Enigma" and the film of the book are both good value if you don't fancy tackling more heavy-weight code-breaking histories) Post-war Turing was of course equally famously arrested, persecuted and "treated" for being a gay man. His suicide combined with his unique contributions to winning WWII and to Computer Science have made him into a modern-day gay icon - and belatedly led to his receiving a Royal Pardon in 2013 - none of which helped him much when it counted in 1952!

I had thought of adding this to Cole's "Irony? An English sense of humour?" topic and the irony aspect also relates directly to Nigel Gordon's topic "Petition for Pardon" after the (very) pothumous pardon was granted to Alan Turing as if he was the only gay man ever persucuted by our society and the UK State!

[Merkin]

A few colored lights are not enough to illuminate the dark corners remaining in the dreadful, dismal history of our treatment of GLBT humanity.

[Graeme]

It used to be called IDAHO -- I'm not sure when it became IDAHOT though a quick search shows that it was labelled as IDAHOT last year as well.

As per this article (about the Australian Football League Players Association campaign against homophobia), the date corresponds to the date when homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organisation.

[Nick Deverill]

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Winston Churchill, Mansion House,November 1942

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)

It's a start, and a step in the right direction

Me, just now...