In 1999 the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association celebrated its 20th anniversary. The five highlights of the year were:
- its successful proposal of a comprehensive resolution on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people’s rights at the World Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (10-14 January, India) – a resolution drafted by Dutch member Hans Hoekzema and proposed by UK founder member Jim Herrick.
- its dramatised tribute to the great US freethinker Robert Green Ingersoll on the centenary of his death, devised and produced by GALHA committee member Derek Lennard and co-sponsored by the South Place Ethical Society and the Leicester Secular Society (9 July and 26 November in London and 2 October in Leicester).
- its residential weekend gathering (11-13 September, York) at which the guest speaker was former National Secular Society General Secretary and Freethinker Editor Bill McIlroy.
- its participation (as official co-sponsor) in the Queer Remembrance Ceremony organised by OutRage! and held at the Cenotaph, Whitehall (14 November, London) to commemorate those lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people who died fighting Nazism or died in the concentration camps.
- its anniversary dinner (11 December, London) which was addressed by representatives of five kindred humanist organisations (the British Humanist Association, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, the National Secular Society, the Rationalist Press Association and the South Place Ethical Society) and as keynote speaker Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and party spokesperson on Higher Education and Women’s Issues.
We continued to play a part in the ongoing campaign to achieve lesbian and gay equality. We initiated a protest campaign against Laura Ashley after the company appointed US Christian homophobe Pat Robertson as a non-executive director. We twice lobbied the Home Secretary concerning anti-gay discrimination – first after the issue of the report of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, and second after the Admiral Duncan bombing. We made a detailed submission to the Home Office team reviewing sex offences.
Following several joint meetings with Amnesty International UK’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Network, our committee decided to affiliate to Amnesty International.
Following a talk on GALHA and gay rights issues given by Jim Herrick, the Tyneside Humanist Group, one of the largest and most active such groups in the country, decided to affiliate to GALHA.