INSIDE TRACK: INTERVIEW
In this section: 18 Interview: Patrick Harvie MSP | 23 Focus: Sexual health | 27 Insight: Defence |
In the frame
Mandy Rhodes interviews Green MSP Patrick Harvie as he prepares to take up the co-convener post of the
Green Party about ideology, sexuality and playing competitive pool
F
or a non-believer, Patrick Harvie
has a lot to thank God for. In fact,
had it not been for religious zealots, he
may never have mobilised himself into
action and realised that politics can ef-
fect change for the good.
As the world celebrated 2000, Harvie
was happily working as a youth worker
in Glasgow with the gay health project,
PHACE Scotland, was a volunteer and
board member with the West of Scot-
land Gay and Lesbian Forum, had been
successfully involved in ground-breaking
health education literature which was
credited with helping to reduce HIV fig-
ures in the city and was enjoying grass-
roots, political activism. He was happy
and feeling positive about the future for
gay rights and equality. That feel-good
was about to be destroyed.
Although for many the new mil-
lennium heralded a new start; for the
gay community, it promised a return to
anti-gay bigotry on a scale not seen for
at least a generation. As a well orches-
trated and well funded Christian-backed
campaign was launched to prevent the
repeal of Section 28 in the Scottish Par-
liament, a court action was also taken
by a Glasgow nurse, believed to have
been backed by the Christian Institute,
against Glasgow City Council for its sup-
port in funding organisations which, she
believed, advocated homosexuality. The
funding to all the organisations named in
the action, including Harvie’s own, had
their funding frozen. This three-pronged
attack was, quite literally, an avalanche
on gay rights.
Section 28 of the 1988 Local Gov-
ernment Act (known as Section 2a in
Scotland but commonly referred to as
Section 28) was introduced by the Tories
on the back of a series of lurid stories in
the right-wing tabloids about the suppos-
edly ‘politically correct’ policies of Lon-
18
| 17 November 2008 | Holyrood magazine | www.holyrood.com |
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