Last month we attended a candlelit vigil outside the Mansion House as part of a national gathering in support of the repeal of Section 28.

There were people there from Australia and New Zealand.

They had come to show their amazement that such a prejudicial law could still exist in the UK - there is certainly nothing like it "down under" where lesbian and gay partnerships are taken very much for granted, and people are respected for who they are.

Yet here in "the old country", lesbians and gays are afraid to be "out". Schoolchildren are bullied (some of them to death), they are afraid to tell their parents, parents are afraid to tell their kids, they are afraid for their jobs, afraid of their neighbours...

It's madness. It has gone on too long.

I don't want to live in a society where prejudice is ingrained in the law. People need to live and love and be respected for who they are.

I'm ashamed for us.

Section 28 has to go!

Sue Lister,

York

...WITH regard to Murial Gray's letter on lifting Section 28 (February 1), I feel she is misinformed about it's current effects.

Inadequate education about homosexuality has severe consequences.

People get bullied, which possibly leads to depression and suicide; people grow up feeling subhuman, demonised, unloved and abnormal, which leads to low self-esteem and possibly self-destructive behaviour; and young gay men in particular, with no information about sexual health relevant to them, engage in activities which put them at risk of contracting sexually-transmitted diseases.

Denying young people information does not work; neither does trying to

convince them that they 'should' be heterosexual.

Both methods have a proven, spectacular failure rate.

I ask you to reconsider Ms Gray's assertion that ignorance is bliss.

Is it really, or is it the forerunner of misery?

Dinesh Vaswani, York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.