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[Camera shutters clicking]
[Shouting]
[Man] What's your name? Where are you from?
Can I get your first name?
Punched and kicked by anti-gay protesters in Moscow today.
[Peter] Someone, protect me. Someone, protect me.
Before being arrested by police.
Being the target of a violent attack comes with the territory.
Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Tatchell.
Stop homophobia in the Commonwealth!
Peter Tatchell has devoted his life
to crusading for homosexuals.
[Peter] When people in power won't show compassion,
sometimes you have to up the ante.
He writes the book on how to do a protest.
Peter is a performance artist.
I am trying to ensure the arrest of a torturer.
He deserves recognition for his extraordinary contribution
to the happiness of millions who've never heard of him.
The whole gay community owes you
because of your bravery and your courage.
Gay activist Peter Tatchell refused to move on.
- Leave. - No, we are not moving away.
Does Peter have an ego? Yes, you need an ego to perform.
- Can you shut up now, please? - I'm not going to shut up.
This is not a fair and open debate.
This is the most disliked man in Britain.
From the early days, I thought Peter was a brave motherfucker.
Let me be frank, I don't think Peter was always helping.
Let me finish. Let me finish. Let me finish.
That really isn't true.
The church for 2,000 years has been saying we're sick
and sinful and immoral, and we're going to burn in hell.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
was interrupted today by a gay rights protest.
Dr Carey opposes lesbian and gay human rights.
He's a bullying kind of chap trying to get his own way.
Real men don't get insecure about gay men.
Real men can cope and don't get scared by gay men.
Hey, Peter Tatchell, I'll see you again, you pussy.
What keeps me going is the knowledge that the homophobes
who are against me want me to give up.
Just like the Suffragettes or the black civil rights movement
in America, we have to get a bit angry and confrontational.
We've tried to play by the rules. It hasn't worked.
Now we're going to break the rules.
[song begins]
♪ Did you alter the face of the city? ♪
♪ Make any change in the world you found ♪
♪ Or did you observe all the warnings? ♪
♪ Did you stand there in the traces
♪ And let 'em feed you lies? ♪
♪ Did you trail along behind them ♪
♪ Wearing blinkers on your eyes? ♪
♪ Did you kiss the foot that kicked you? ♪
♪ Did you thank them for their scorn? ♪
♪ Did you ask for their forgiveness ♪
♪ For the act of being born? ♪
♪ Act of being born Act of being born ♪
[Background conversations]
[Producer] Cameras running.
Do you mind doing a hand clap
just in-between the two mics for me, just...?
Yep, that's perfect, thank you.
OK, we're ready.
[Ian] 1952, Melbourne.
My family were working-class Pentecostal Evangelicals.
Ooh, lovely.
Pretty close to fundamentalist Christians.
God has manifested his purpose.
It was a very puritanical form of religion,
which put great store on the terrible sins
of wearing lipstick, drinking, smoking, swearing.
In the day in which we live,
where debauchery seems to be the norm,
where people are looking for sin and iniquity to abound...
In those days, they used to scream and shout and carry on.
There is forgiveness for sin, though your sins be as scarlet.
It was all fire and brimstone and "You're going to hell",
and I look at my brother, Peter, and I think, yeah,
he's more Christlike than
so many of these religious...please.
It's a fight against the devil, really.
That's...
Well, that's what evil is, of course, isn't it?
It's the devil in people.
My name is Mari, and I'm Peter's mother.
Unfortunately, she's been brainwashed by the church
to think homosexuals are going to hell.
I mean, good deeds don't save us.
That's one thing that the Bible does teach.
Good deeds are not going to get us to heaven.
This is my mother in 1946, aged 18.
[Peter] All throughout my childhood,
my mother suffered from life-threatening asthma.
I basically had to look after
my younger half-brother and two half-sisters.
He was like my second mum.
He would just do things for me like get a bottle and
put my shoes on, pick out the clothes he'd like me to wear.
[She chuckles]
Send the next one through, next one through!
I was regarded as a rebel at school.
[School bell rings]
They didn't always agree with my politics.
I thought people should have input
into the way the school was run.
We ensured that the system of appointing house captains
and prefects was made by the pupils,
not the staff and the headmaster.
This was grassroots democracy in the classroom.
A lot of the boys used to joke that I was gay.
At the time, I didn't realise I was gay.
I thought I was straight. I had girlfriends.
It was quite a thing to be voted head boy,
given that I was very radical left-wing,
and, according to some guys, gay.
When my mother remarried...
- Did she divorce? - Yeah, yeah.
That must've been a shock to the church.
- It was. - Oh...
My stepfather, Edwin,
he was an extremely harsh and even cruel, I'd say...
Member of the church?
Yeah, but not very Christian
in his own behaviour towards my mother or myself.
His belief was that, quote, children should pay their way,
so, with great reluctance, I left school at the end of 1968.
Then, when I went to work in a department store,
I met for the first time openly gay people about my own age
who were, you know, handsome, creative, talented.
Up until that time, I always thought a gay man
was some dirty old geezer who molested young boys.
I never conceived of the idea
that a gay person could be someone like me.
One of my co-workers used to invite me home
for dinner every night as a joke, sort of.
One night, when he asked me, I said yes.
He had a little bedsit flat overlooking Port Phillip Bay,
we had a very romantic dinner at the window,
looking at the dolphins diving in and out of the water,
and then, afterwards, we had sex,
and it was a great experience,
and I remember lying back on the bed and thinking to myself,
"If this is what gay is, then I'm definitely gay."
My parents were such zealous Christians
that I initially dared not tell them I was gay.
I feared they might report me to the police.
[TV theme music]
Please welcome Mardi Nitscke.
Peter says that, over a period of two to three years,
he was hinting towards the effect that he was homosexual.
Like any other mother, you know,
you hope that your son or your daughter is not homosexual.
What did being homosexual mean to you?
Well, for one thing, it's against my Christian beliefs.
Was it still a crime, though, in Australia when you came out?
At that time, homosexuality was still punishable
by several years imprisonment... - Goodness.
And possible forcible psychiatric treatment, as well.
Where did your sense of injustice
and the possibility of putting it right come from?
When I was aged 11.
I heard about the bombing by white racists
of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama.
Four young girls, about my own age, were murdered.
I remember thinking to myself, "How could anyone
"kill four young girls in church on a Sunday morning?"
That prompted my interest and support
for the black civil rights movement.
We need an organisation
that's ready and willing to take action.
Later, I adapted their ideals, values and methods
to my own human rights work.
Any kind of action, not when the men downtown see fit
but when we see fit, by any means necessary.
I looked at the experience of the black civil rights movement,
and calculated that it would probably take about 50 years
to win LGBT+ rights
in countries like Australia, the United States and Britain.
From the age of 15 onwards, I began campaigning
against Australia and America's involvement in the Vietnam War.
Our goal was to build a huge protest
that would show the Australian government
that they no longer had the support of the people.
This barrel will continue to hold
the immediate future for all young Australians
to recruit training before they're drafted
to regular army unit to complete their two-year service.
My name's Helen Hill.
I met Peter at one of the regular demonstrations
held at the General Post Office.
Peter was one of the keen members to urge young men
of a particular age group not to register for national service.
That was a serious criminal offence
tantamount to incitement, sedition and mutiny.
[Helen] There was a demonstration
outside the US Embassy on the 4th of July
against the continuation of the Vietnam War.
When we got there, the road was blockaded by mounted police.
We sat down, and then we were subjected
to a very violent mounted horseback charge with batons.
I was very, very afraid.
People's heads were being smashed and split.
Once they saw police horses
driving into the crowd, they would run away.
But then there were others,
such as Peter, who would maintain their position.
Did you like the idea of being the rebel?
Well, I felt a satisfaction
that I was doing what I believed to be right.
The Vietnam Moratorium protests of 1970
were the turning point of public opinion against the war.
Ironic, isn't it,
that, if you want to demonstrate for peace,
you also have to employ
some of the traditional qualities of war.
It taught me how you can mobilise people.
Get media coverage.
Put people in power under pressure,
and persuade public opinion to change.
When did you leave Australia?
I left in 1971.
If I'd stayed in Australia, I would've been required by law
to register for the draft for Vietnam.
And I had a conscious objection to that war.
I believed it was immoral, unjust.
I didn't want to be a part of it.
[Gentle music]
[Groovy music]
Leaving Australia was quite a wrench.
It was a leap in the dark.
In the end, I settled in London,
got a good job, made lots of new friends.
- And how old were you then? - Nineteen.
So, still not legally able to have sex,
even consenting sex, in the UK.
Yeah.
Still a crime. - You had to be 21, didn't you?
Yeah.
When I'd first come to London and first met Peter Tatchell,
if two men kissed in the street,
it was an arrestable offence, it was an act of gross indecency.
You could actually get a jail term for it.
My name's Tom Robinson.
I had a spell of fame in '78
with a song called 'Sing if You're Glad to be Gay'.
♪ Sing if you're glad to be gay ♪
♪ Sing if you're happy that way hey ♪
♪ Sing if you're glad to be gay ♪
♪ Sing if you're happy that way ♪
One more time.
London was an amazing place for a young queer man to arrive.
The gay liberation movement had just kicked off.
The second day I was here in London,
I saw a sticker advertising
the meetings of the newly formed Gay Liberation Front.
- On your second day. - Yes, yes!
- The second day.
So, five days later, I was at my first meeting,
and, a month later, I was helping to organise
lots of the Gay Liberation Front's
spectacular street protests.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at a roaring lesbian.
I am one of those people, a pervert, according to society.
[Angela] I remember Peter appeared from Australia,
and he had lovely, dark, curly hair.
We thought he was a rather lovely young man.
My name's Angela Mason,
and I've been involved in gay liberation movements
for over 50 years.
The Gay Liberation Front
actually developed from what was happening in America.
[Voiceover] In the summer of 1969,
police violently raided the Stonewall Inn in New York City.
Police raids on gay bars were common,
but, this time, the LGBTQ patrons
and passers-by fought back, sparking days of rioting.
In Stonewall, the riots are now so iconic
that everyone assumes that we all knew about it
when it was happening,
and that immediately things sprang into action,
but did you have a direct relationship
with the Stonewall riots?
I did hear about a subsequent protest
two or three months later, a gay rights march in New York.
And when I read that,
I thought to myself, "Wow, this is what I want to be part of."
[Rock'n'roll music]
When we walked up 6th Avenue, and we said, "Join us,"
we didn't know that the world would join us and be proud.
[Bells ring]
The next meeting is January.
The following meeting will be at the LSC as usual.
The Gay Liberation Front developed
from hundreds and hundreds of people coming together.
Peter was always part of the events that were going on.
The Gay Liberation Front
was a completely joyful, fun, anarchic, radical experience.
There was humour involved in it.
We're here, we're queer, get used to it,
rather than - would you please accept us?
A lot of the politics of gay liberation
weren't, in a sense, traditional politics.
They were challenging in quite a witty way cultural stereotypes.
Personally, it means to me a liberation of my own life.
Before GLF, I was incredibly...
I was really leading a double life.
The great thing about the Gay Liberation Front
was that it provided you with alternative role models.
Culturally, there were really only camp gay men visible,
and no lesbians that I can recall.
You'd get people like Kenneth Williams being very, very funny.
It raises the problem of sex.
I assure you, matron,
I wouldn't dream of bothering you in that way.
John Inman in 'Are You Being Served?'
I bet you met a lot of nice girls that way.
I did.
Not to mention a roving reporter, a trendy bishop,
a stringvestite and a dustman
with a very interesting tale to tell.
When I was 20,
it was the first time I came across the word
'homosexual' in a book,
and therefore I was unable to form any meaningful
emotional relationship of a kind which I longed for.
I was unable to talk to anybody about what I felt
because I was ashamed of it.
The predominant view was that gay was sad and shameful.
So, we wanted to develop an idea to counter that.
We organised the UK's first ever gay pride parade in July 1972.
[Gentle piano music]
Even many LGBT+ people felt it was a bad idea,
drawing unnecessary attention to us.
I never saw the LGBT+ freedom struggle
as purely a national one.
I always saw it as global.
♪ Please ♪
♪ Do you believe in respect? ♪
♪ To me ♪
Gay pride would be a way
of helping overcome internalised homophobia.
We would help change the consciousness
of the queer community.
As well as asserting our dignity and rights
before the straight majority.
I've been on every single London pride parade since.
We must never forget the rights of LGBT+ people
in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and so, when I heard about
the World Festival of Youth and Students being held
in communist East Berlin in 1973, I thought this is a chance
to take the gay liberation message to all these countries.
I was 21 at the time,
and the idea of going to stage
what turned out to be the first ever gay rights protest
in a communist country, that was scary.
There's a strength, people would call it bravery,
wouldn't they, or foolhardiness.
That's foolhardiness.
[Dramatic music]
Many people came up to me,
and I secretly passed them leaflets
I'd stuffed in my rucksack.
Those leaflets went back to countries
like Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
They were passed around in underground circles
for years and years afterwards.
That protest during the festival did prompt the beginnings
of a new LGBT+ movement in those communist countries.
I'm Stephen Fry.
Like most people, I first heard of Peter Tatchell
because of the Bermondsey by-election.
The story really began locally
when Bermondsey Labour Party first selected Peter Tatchell.
Bermondsey lies south of Tower Bridge alongside the Thames.
It has long been a Labour stronghold.
We don't want someone there
who's gonna have their lips shut and say nothing,
we want someone who's gonna fight hard for local people.
You can guarantee I'm gonna do that, can't ya?
Yeah. That's very nice.
The fact that he was a gay candidate
should've been something to be celebrated and admired,
but it was made into a huge millstone around his neck.
Can I rely on your support for Labour?
One way we went out of gay liberation was into public life.
Lots of people who worked for local authorities
became councillors.
Peter saw the Labour Party as an opportunity
to achieve major democratic socialist advance.
It was a battle.
A left-wing militant was picked last night
to fight in the next election.
I'm very confident that I will stop
the Tory rent increases, demand jobs for the unemployed,
which everybody in the Labour Party agrees with.
At the beginning of the election,
he was well in front on the opinion polls.
All these office blocks, who's putting a stop to them? Labour.
I'm Chris Smith.
I was the first openly gay cabinet minister
anywhere in the world.
Can I rely on your support for Labour
in the election on the 24th?
May do.
During the run-up to the Bermondsey by-election,
Peter was subject to all sorts of horrible viciousness.
Peter Tatchell's homosexuality
was ridiculed by his opponents and by some on his own side.
♪ Tatchell is a puppet as pretty as can be ♪
♪ But he must be slow if he don't know ♪
♪ He can't beat our MP ♪
Tatchell is receiving constant death threats,
and needs police protection.
Two bullets sent to me.
I had three attempts to run me down in the car.
This letter here is pretty typical.
At the age of 64 with a heart complaint,
and therefore with little to lose,
I will be prepared to go to prison
for the murder of this creep.
The dirtiest election campaign in British history.
If you want to win an election,
you don't run around with homosexuality as an issue.
It's rubbish.
The scale of hatred and violence
seemed to coincide with the tabloid campaign.
The real damage wasn't done
so much by any individual article as by the non-stop
cumulative effect, the drip effect of week after week,
month after month for 15 months,
a whole series of negative stories about myself.
When we were going round the second time on the doorstep,
people were saying,
"Oh, I ain't gonna vote for that bloody queer."
I'm not voting for Tatchell. That shit is not happening.
- Ooh, careful, careful. - I mustn't swear.
I can remember
going round knocking on doors on election day in Bermondsey,
and we had a list of people
who were supposed to be Labour supporters,
and we were knocking on doors trying to get them out to vote.
It was painfully obvious
they were not going to vote for Peter.
Lord David Edward Sutch, 97.
[Cheering]
Peter Tatchell...
7,698.
Liberal/SDP gain.
Simon Hughes has been elected
as member of parliament for Bermondsey.
And here he is making his victory speech.
[Voiceover] Tatchell thrashed.
Disaster for Labour as Alliance win Bermondsey.
As far as I know,
it has beaten any swing in this century's political history.
The defeated Peter Tatchell's expression this morning
belied his bitterness at what he insists
has been a smear campaign against him.
Peter's defeat at Bermondsey, it was clearly...
you couldn't just join the Labour Party, become an MP
and thereby establish lesbian and gay rights.
That wasn't an easy route,
a route that we were going to be able to go through.
The great tragedy of this election is that prejudice
and bigotry triumphed over tolerance and compassion,
and that smears and lies triumphed over truth and reason.
I could imagine a lot of people saw what happened to Peter
over the by-election, and thought
they would retreat straight back into the closet.
The homophobia of that campaign
did make me resolve to devote more energy
to fighting for gay rights so that no other person
would have to go through what I went through.
Do you think it was better on the whole
you didn't get elected as an MP?
A social movement outside of parliament
is often the real vehicle and mode of change.
Grassroots movements have been the originators of social change
which parliamentarians have later put into practice.
♪ One two three four ♪
[Thatcher] Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.
Where there is error, may we bring truth.
Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.
The 1980s were a horrendous period for the LGBT+ community.
Government was at war with us.
Margaret Thatcher emphasised
a very heterosexist normative sexual morality.
The first articles appeared in newspapers
about this extraordinary new bathhouse virus.
At the outset, it was known as the gay plague.
A Moral Majority report
depicts what is supposed to be a typical American family.
They're wearing surgical masks.
The magazine charges
the American family is now threatened by the AIDS epidemic.
It seemed that the world was doing nothing about it,
that...and that discrimination was being allowed.
I hesitate to use the word perversion,
but let's face up to the truth of this situation.
That's what it is.
Calls for gay people to be refused service
in bars and restaurants.
A gay person shared a drink with you.
That could've been a death sentence.
Even demands that we be quarantined
as a threat to the public health.
There might be a flea or a mosquito that bites them,
takes their blood and then bites you and puts it in you.
These people are...they are worse than lepers,
and aside from the disgusting things they do,
look at the threat they pose to everybody.
75% of all victims are male homosexuals,
and most of the others are intravenous drug users,
and doctors don't know why.
It was like living through a war.
Outside of a battlefield, young men don't die in such numbers.
[Poignant stringed music]
People I knew were dying, and there was no hope.
With AIDS, death was inevitable.
There was no cure, absolutely none,
and didn't look as if there was gonna be one.
Well, to be told that is pretty hard, and we need champions,
and who should step up but Peter Tatchell?
Our guest tonight makes no secret of the fact
that he's a homosexual.
Does anyone want to come in and ask questions about that?
Yes.
Do you think people in general would be more tolerant of gays
if there was a cure for AIDS?
Well, first of all, we have to get rid of the idea
that AIDS is a gay disease, it's not.
AIDS is, I feel, is a consequence of sin.
Man has strayed from Biblical truths.
Jesus never said a word about homosexuality,
and lots of people claim to speak on behalf of Jesus,
but Jesus never, ever said a word
against lesbians or gay men.
[Peter] I was aghast
at the way in which people with HIV were being demonised.
We decided to organise a candlelit vigil
outside the World Health Minister's Summit on AIDS
in London.
[Stephen] I had imagined it would be a cluster of people
with torches and candlelights.
It was huge.
It was the largest demonstration I'd ever been in,
and people were in tears because of the solidarity shown,
because of the connection shown,
because of the sudden understanding
that we had each other, we really did have each other.
[Poignant music]
This was a period of deep, deep crisis,
and yet it brought out a tremendous spirit
of belonging and determination to be accepted.
This put the human rights of people with HIV on the agenda
in a way that hadn't happened before,
and did result in the World Health Ministers
issuing a declaration against discrimination in favour of
education and support for people living with the virus.
Peter's activism was one of the ingredients
that led to a better response.
The government is now seriously worried about AIDS,
hence the making and formal release today
of their new TV commercial.
At first, only gays and IV drug users were being killed by AIDS,
but now we know every one of us could be devastated by it.
This was a period of real, intense homophobia,
which culminated, of course, in Margaret Thatcher's 1987 speech
at the Conservative Party Conference
where she attacked the right to be gay.
Children who need to be taught to respect
traditional moral values
are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.
And then introduced Section 28.
The government is to ban
the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
Any espousal or promotion of gay life,
any normalising of the gay existence, is prohibited.
It has been adopted in modified form by countries like Russia,
who now ban what they call
the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations,
sexual relations between people of the same gender.
Thatcher made legislation
whereby homosexuality could not be taught in schools
or shown in any kind of positive light at all.
But then unintended consequences of her doing that
actually galvanised our community.
It brought women and men together.
Lesbians and gay men who'd been, kind of,
drifting apart all the way through went,
"No, we'll stand together on this,"
and fantastic solidarity emerged,
and we got the Stonewall movement off the back of that,
and we got the OutRage! movement off the back of that.
[Chanting]
[Peter] OutRage! wanted to change the system.
Our goal was to secure respect, dignity and rights
for queer people.
Repealing anti-LGBT+ laws,
changing the way in which institutions like the police
and judiciary operated.
This was an agenda
for a fundamental transformation of British society.
♪ We're here because we're queer ♪
♪ Because we're here because we're queer ♪
Like every successful social movement in history,
we also believed there was a role for direct action
and non-violent civil disobedience.
OutRage! allowed a group of young men in the main,
who were just incredibly angry
about the way they were being treated,
Peter allowed that to be expressed.
We're queer, we're here and Soho's ours.
Protestors say it's a discriminatory and outdated law,
which turns Britain's estimated 5 million gays and lesbians
into second-class citizens.
We're gonna draw attention to the government
the fact that Britain has more anti-gay laws
than any other West European country.
I spent the first couple of years,
young years in the army, yeah, with my arse against the wall.
I didn't want to be buggered.
I didn't want these people coming nowhere near me.
The ban on lesbians and gay men serving in the armed forces
is hypocritical when some of its most famous military commanders
have been homosexual.
I regarded him, I have to say, from time to time
as a little bit of an irritant, but that was a good thing.
We give public recognition to love that we feel for each other
and the commitment we freely make to each other.
Civil marriage in this country was a right we have fought for.
We are now fighting for the right of our relationship
to be recognised by the state.
They wouldn't let us get married!
[Jeering]
Different people at different stages of their lives
did want to contribute and fight and struggle in different ways.
We got together, and decided to form
a new lesbian and gay group, Stonewall, to work with
political parties, and political and legal institutions.
OutRage! would do
the provocative, confrontational things,
then Stonewall would step in and say, well,
"Come and talk to us,
"then you have to talk to those nasty OutRage! people."
We were talking about
different ways of achieving the same thing.
When Stonewall went in to talk
to cabinet ministers and prime ministers,
there was a fear from the establishment
that Tatchell and his troops would be erecting the barricades
and Stonewall was behind there, having a cup of tea.
What do we want? Equality!
At the same time, there was a whole litany
of really aggravating police activities.
The toilet at Victoria Station is one of the many places
where police are arresting men for sexual offences.
Excuse me, sir? Police officers, you're under arrest.
Police officers would dress up as hunky, gay men,
and would try and entice people into kissing and fondling them,
and would then promptly arrest them.
The Metropolitan Police are mounting an agent provocateur,
an entrapment operation against gay men.
Escalating arrests of gay and bisexual men.
What they are doing is illegal
and contrary to the Home Office guidelines.
Rising levels of queer-bashing violence, and even murder.
Murders of gay men are notoriously difficult to solve,
which means that, in many cases,
the killers are still at large, and could strike again.
[Crowd] Arrest the murderers, not the victims!
The police were persecuting us, not protecting us.
If you think homosexuality is legal in Britain, you're wrong.
A pretty good party. Dancing, music, socialising.
But, by introducing those two men to each other,
he's just committed a crime.
Could all those people
who are gonna be handing themselves to the police
stand just outside the main entrance to the police station?
My favourite involvement with OutRage!
was the kissing, actually kissing on camera.
This man gave me his telephone number
so that I could get in touch with him,
and we could have a sexual liaison.
That is illegal in this country,
and that is a disgrace, and, if they want me,
take me now in front of the whole fucking world.
We're handing ourselves in as sex criminals.
[Loud cheering]
No more, no more, no more, no more,
no more, no more!
Peter has a genius for picking up things
that are gonna create a headline.
[Peter] It empowered LGBT+ people
to believe that they didn't have to be victims anymore.
We could take on powerful institutions and laws,
and defeat them.
It also made straight people aware
of the scale of discrimination that we faced,
and the level of hate crime and violence.
In interviews, he's so, so earnest and deadpan
in the way that he talks about serious issues,
you don't realise that lurking behind that
is also somebody who enjoys a bit of wildness and anarchism.
From the beginning of OutRage!
through to the mid-1990s, public opinion
began to dramatically shift in favour of LGBT+ equality.
Shame, shame!
I did sometimes feel antagonistic to Peter,
and didn't agree with him.
Occasionally, I may have even thought
he was on a bit of an ego trip, you know?
Well, you're a leading member of OutRage!,
and this is the militant gay group
which seeks to expose and to out gay people in high places
who'd prefer to keep their sexuality private.
This is you in action.
[Ethereal music]
We tried to speak with the church,
we tried to be reasonable, and they would not listen.
They refused to meet with us.
They refused to have any dialogue,
so, in those circumstances,
we felt that we had to adopt more confrontational tactics.
Until last week,
the Bishop of London's sex life was his own business.
Then, the Right Reverend David Hope
suddenly found himself having to discuss his sexual nature
in every newspaper in the land,
all because he'd been sent a letter from this man
urging him to come out as homosexual.
What business is it of yours what he does?
Outing people was not popular with everybody,
including some gay people who were themselves out,
'cause they could remember the time they hadn't been out,
and the difficulties of that,
and to declare that someone is gay affects not just them
but their relationships with their family and so on.
But you took the view that outing certain people
under certain circumstances was the right thing to do.
Outing, for me, is queer self-defence.
We never outed anyone because they were gay in the closet.
It's only because they were being hypocritical
and colluding with homophobic laws and values.
[George] The outings, there were ten bishops involved.
I knew them all personally,
and I think it hurt them very deeply.
I'm George Carey.
I was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002.
Peter was pretty active in the human rights agenda.
I thought he was a bullying kind of chap
trying to get his own way, and I didn't like that.
Dr Hope is one of the most senior of the Anglican bishops.
No-one at this level in the church
has spoken out so explicitly about his sexuality before.
David took it in a very remarkable way.
He called journalists around, and he said,
"I want to tell you my sexuality is grey."
Some may choose to describe themselves as being homosexual,
some as heterosexual.
For some, the area is slightly greyer,
and I think I was saying
that that's the sort of area I find myself in.
I never agreed with forcibly outing people.
I could absolutely see the temptation,
especially where there was hypocrisy going on.
People who were campaigning for Section 28,
who were campaigning against an equal age of consent,
who were voting through homophobic legislation,
and yet most of us knew that they themselves were gay.
It's deplorable when people issue homophobic remarks,
and actually make life worse
for their queer sisters and brothers
while being gay themselves.
That's reprehensible,
but I still don't think it gives you the moral high ground
to actually get out there and condemn them or tear them
kicking and screaming out of the closet.
This bishop had done nothing
to merit this letter and this public exposure in the end.
Well, it's a bit much for the church to talk about intrusions.
I mean, the church for 2,000 years has been intruding
on the lives of lesbian and gay people, saying we're sick
and sinful and immoral, and we're going to burn in hell.
And here we have the outrageous outer of them all,
Peter Tatchell.
Do you not think you're kind of being a bit hypocritical
by actually outing these people,
and then they've gone on to suffer that same discrimination
that the people that you're trying to protect are?
You seem to me to be shooting yourself in the foot.
You should not do this, man.
What you want is a form of fascism.
Well, the press...
You can't just wreck people's lives and everything.
Whose lives have been wrecked?
How do you know that?
It's the old ends justified the means argument.
No, I'm not saying we'd do anything.
[George] It was wrong to do.
It was wrong to do because some of these people were very old.
One or two were married and living faithful married lives.
You heard some rumour, you had...
It's not rumour. It's not rumour.
Do you have kind of secret policemen
who go around, sort of, taking photographs?
No, we don't.
It's a kind of gay Gestapo, really, isn't it?
Everybody knows that, high up in the church,
there are lesbian and gay people.
How can you in all conscious act as the judge and jury
in these matters,
and how dare you define a man by his sexuality.
What he decides is basically to bomb his way to the
negotiating table, and release a few names of some bishops.
That is repugnant behaviour.
Society continues to be more homophobic because of people
like you, Mr Tatchell, and your outrageous tactics.
This charge of counterproductive tactics
has always been used, you know,
against every rising social movement.
It was used against the Suffragettes in Britain.
It was used against the black civil rights movement
in the United States.
Most historians accept that the catharsis
of those direct-action protests was the necessary spark
to generate public awareness
about the scale of discrimination,
and to build momentum for change.
Whatever the critics may say,
the outing campaign was incredibly effective.
As far as I know,
none of those bishops ever again said anything anti-gay.
52 years of civil disobedience, Peter.
53 now.
53 years, I beg your pardon.
Do you remember Easter Sunday 1988?
1998.
The Archbishop of Canterbury's traditional Easter sermon
was interrupted today by a gay rights protest.
Demonstrators scaled the pulpit,
waving banners and shouting at the archbishop.
Lord, You call us all to be men and women of peace.
We had tried for eight years
to get a meeting with the archbishop.
He was saying that there should be no legal recognition
of same-sex relationships.
We were faced with the option,
either give up and walk away or go on to challenge him,
and where better than in his own cathedral
at Canterbury on Easter Sunday
when his sermon had been televised around the world?
My name's Adrian Arbib. I'm a journalist.
We were told to be at Canterbury Cathedral,
to be as close to the front as possible for the Easter sermon.
And we were told just to, you know, be ready with a camera.
So, I went in with a little film camera.
Remember how He told you
while He was with you in Galilee, and then...
Suddenly, these people rushed into the pulpit.
Peter was there.
I was pushed to one side,
and he bellowed into the microphone for some minutes.
Dr Carey supports discrimination against lesbian and gay people.
He opposes lesbian and gay human rights.
This is not a Christian teaching.
I just leapt up and sort of got as close as I could.
I was trapped in the pulpit. There was a stunned silence.
The congregation start clapping, and they were going,
"Out, out, out," which I thought was hilarious.
And then the officials started to come and pull people off.
Peter's shouting, of course, it echoes
throughout the whole cathedral, which is, like, epic.
It is wrong for Dr Carey
to say that people who are lesbian and gay
should be discriminated against at work.
They were quite violent.
They weren't kind of being gentle about it.
As they were being pulled off the pulpit,
they were punching Peter's hands.
Peter was actually trying to hang onto the pulpit,
and they were actually punching, you know, really hard.
I ask you, I beseech you.
About a good three or four minutes,
so it was a really effective protest
'cause it made front page.
The media love all that kind of stuff.
[Shouting]
My reaction at the time was anger
mixed with some degree of sadness about it.
Why does he do this?
It's a kind of scorched earth policy, you know?
You don't make friends that way.
Storm into the pulpit,
get your own way, bellow and then retreat, you know?
Where is the justification for this?
As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't damage me,
but I'm worried when it hurts other people,
and disrupts a Christian service,
as they did this morning.
Peter Tatchell was completely unapologetic in court.
He said there was a moral obligation
to stand up against human rights abuses.
We put the issue of the church's homophobia on the public agenda.
Most of the letters, though, were hostile.
That's the problem.
Perhaps too many people watching saw what I saw.
Oh, here goes Peter Tatchell again,
rather than listening to what you had to say.
Well, I was a member of the unsuspecting congregation,
and I was appalled and I was embarrassed.
My elderly mother and my homophobic older brother
were shocked and disgusted,
and then to have this going on in front of me was, I thought,
entirely counter-productive to the wider course.
You think maintaining the decorum of a church service
is more important than dealing with people
who violate lesbian and gay human rights.
I think you chose your target completely incorrectly.
I know what works and what doesn't.
I don't know that you do know what works.
On this particular case...
I think you're dogmatic and I think you're arrogant.
I think it was a mistake on Peter's part.
Does it worry you, being disliked?
I'd much rather be loved and appreciated,
and, also, it's quite painful when all the good things
that I've achieved in the past get totally ignored.
We all make missteps and nobody's an angel.
I'm not saying Peter's perfect or he's the ideal activist.
Sometimes you agree with him, sometimes you disagree with him.
The morality I ask for myself I give to others.
If anybody wants to come to a gay pride event,
which I hold as very important, and disrupt it...
You wouldn't have them thrown out?
No, of course not.
Well, you should!
I would defend their right to protest
because protest is fundamental to the lifeblood of a democracy.
Someone said that you were the most hated man in Britain.
Public enemy number one,
a gay fascist and even a homosexual terrorist.
I wear these epithets with pride,
but I've gotta say that it was very, very tough.
Police constable Frost
has brought the letter back to the office.
Peter Tatchell, you are a sick piece of shit.
How can you speak with pride about being gay?
Sticking or taking another man's prick up the arse
is not natural.
Why do you think God made women?
I wouldn't want to overreact to the letter.
No.
You're an outcast. You should be gassed.
Gays are only slightly more acceptable than Pakis.
Die soon, you cunt.
So, not only homophobic,
but a bit of racism thrown in for good measure.
At the time, I was vilified for campaigns
like an equal age of consent,
and for LGBT+ inclusive education in schools.
Peter Tatchell has stood outside a school
handing out literature demonstrating in favour
of they're being educated to make a choice.
Read the literature. It's OK to be gay.
You may be gay yourselves.
With messages like 'How Do You Know Unless You've Tried It?'
they handed out leaflets to children and parents.
Is that your son? He may be gay.
That information should be provided by teachers
but it's not.
I was denounced even by many people in the LGBT+ community.
What I'm worried about is the effect,
the long-term effect, that this sort of action will have.
I think it's an angry mode of politics
that verges on the self-righteous,
and it's, and was meant to be highly provocative.
There were people in Stonewall who didn't like Peter,
and not everybody thought he always acted in the right way,
but he wasn't really accountable.
I think, for people who are intensely homophobic,
I've come to personify
everything they loathe and fear about homosexuality.
I get bricks through the window,
bullets through the door, arson attempts on my home.
If I had to dwell on these attacks,
if I thought about them, I'd probably go mad,
I'd probably commit suicide.
[Phone ringing]
Hi, there. Fine, thank you.
I think I'm quite difficult to live with
because the pressure of my work is so relentless.
Are you in central London at all on Monday?
I work ridiculous hours.
It's not uncommon for me to work a 16-hour day.
Half-past nine in the morning, oh!
I hardly have time to eat or sleep.
- Do you not miss having someone special in your life?
- I've had five wonderful relationships in my life,
which is more than a lot of people.
I feel quite content. I'm single now.
Maybe I'll have another relationship in the future,
who knows?
Yeah, 'cause basically I need about seven copies
for all the major media outlets like BBC, ITN, Channel 4, Sky.
There was one public episode in your life
which proved rather popular for people who'd been your critics
up to that point,
the attempted citizen's arrest of Robert Mugabe.
Zimbabwean human rights defenders
asked if I would try and do something to raise
international awareness about the abuses of the Mugabe regime.
I hit on the idea of using the power of citizen's arrest
to try and get Mugabe put on trial for torture.
[Horns tooting]
- Stop him, he's under arrest! - He's under arrest!
- Arrest him!
The guy in the car! Arrest him!
[Stephen] Peter is a performance artist
with his politics to some extent.
He knows how to stage these things, and he knows perfectly
well that he's not going to be able to put handcuffs on him
and take him to a court of law in The Hague or anywhere else.
Arrest the torturer! No!
Arrest him! Arrest the torturer!
You are under arrest.
[Adrian] There's a lot of adrenaline flowing.
You can see beforehand he's sort of psyching himself up.
You can see him going through the process.
He's got all the arguments in his head.
I've asked you, officer, to arrest President Mugabe
under Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
Peter knows how to get the lighting director
to point the spotlight at the place he wants it pointed,
and that's a great skill.
I'm trying to prevent torture.
I am trying to ensure the arrest
of a torturer, Robert Mugabe.
I thought the attempt to arrest Mugabe on human rights charges
would help shine a spotlight
on the human rights abuses of his regime.
Open the gate!
[Yelling]
But he can be pretty difficult.
He can be a bit of a nightmare, actually.
It's tough, doing that kind of stuff.
It takes a lot of energy to do that.
I've come to see Tim Land.
I would be grateful if you would leave the building.
How many millions of people have to die in Zimbabwe
before you decide not to play cricket?
You know, is it 10,000? 100,000? 1 million? 5 million?
Would 5 million deaths be enough?
Listen. There are other issues.
[Peter] Bring me to the president.
Would someone help me, for God's sake?
And the media is a safeguard. I mean, it always has been.
In all the damage I've ever covered, Peter or otherwise,
if the media's not there, then people will get beaten up.
Peter Tatchell lurked in the lobby of a hotel
to ambush Mr Mugabe as he emerged from lunch.
President Mugabe.
I put you under arrest on charges of torture
under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
Under international law,
President Mugabe, you are under arrest.
[High-pitched bell ringing]
[High-pitched warbling noises]
- Who do you work for? - What?
- Who do you work for? - Who do I work for?
- You hit him. - No!
Let me speak to him, who do you work for?
[Woman] Don't touch him.
Could somebody stand in front of the car
so they can't run him over?
[Tyres screeching]
I thought, even from the early days,
that Peter was a brave motherfucker,
but when I saw him being beaten up by Robert Mugabe's thugs
on prime-time national television,
I thought, "He's a really brave motherfucker."
That was the moment
when Peter ceased to be a media pariah,
and became a national treasure.
Welcome him now, he's Peter Tatchell.
Welcome to the show, Peter. - Morning, Peter.
Let's have a closer look
at the incredible news footage of your latest confrontation.
I'm putting you under arrest on charges of torture...
The attempted arrest of Mugabe made me realise that
I could take on very powerful and quite threatening people.
Get your punk ass here, white boy.
Come here and tell me I fuck you in your ass, you punk white boy.
You faggot.
You can't touch me, you're not man enough.
I eat your asshole alive, you bitch.
Peter and Mike Tyson, there's a match-up.
I'll fuck you till you love me, faggot.
To confront people like that, again,
it's just brilliant on Peter's part.
I walked over to Tyson,
and I said to him, "Will you make a statement
that you oppose discrimination against gay people?"
To my surprise and delight, he was the first
major straight sport star to ever make such a statement.
[Stephen] Within Russia,
once society legally regards you as on the fringes of the law
because of your sexuality,
it means you are vulnerable to all kinds of attack.
It means blood on the pavements.
They're constantly likely to be beaten up
or blackmailed or silenced or fined or imprisoned.
In 2007, I was asked by Russian LGBT+ activists
to go to Moscow to support their efforts to hold
a gay pride parade,
which is lawful under the Russian Constitution,
but was banned by the then mayor of Moscow.
So, I went there to stand in solidarity
with these incredibly brave Russian activists.
The gay rights activist Peter Tatchell
and Right Said Fred singer Richard Fairbrass have been
attacked while they were taking part in a march in Moscow.
We were absolutely right to stage a short, peaceful protest,
and that's all we intended to do.
We'd literally been here two minutes.
Whoa! Whoa!
[Shouting and screaming]
I was targeted by neo-Nazis
with police collusion,
and very badly beaten.
Oh!
[Peter groaning]
Were you hurt as a result?
Um...
As a result of the many physical assaults I've endured,
I've been left with
semi-permanent brain and eye injuries.
It's damaged my concentration, memory,
balance and coordination.
It doesn't stop me but I am slower and it's more difficult.
I used to be a really good typist,
but now I find, really, it's a real struggle to type.
I get the letters jumbled up a lot.
But, you know, by comparison to human rights defenders
in Iran or Saudi Arabia, I've got off lightly.
You know, I haven't been imprisoned,
I haven't been tortured, I'm not dead,
so I count my blessings and think, well, carry on the fight.
This one is Stephen Fry and me, the actor Stephen Fry.
Oh, yeah.
Protesting in 2013 when the Russians introduced
a new anti-gay law
to criminalise what they call the propaganda
of non-traditional sexual relations,
in other words homosexuality.
Mm.
Lots of teachers have been sacked from their jobs,
which is obviously upsetting.
Well, you don't know
whether they're, sort of, preaching their...
What do you mean preaching?
You know, they'd say, "It's alright to be gay," you know?
What's wrong with saying that?
Lots of young kids will be gay and lesbians,
so they should be saying to kids it's OK to be gay.
Don't be upset or depressed or suicidal.
Yeah, but not coming from a teacher,
I don't think it's right, but anyway.
Well, isn't a teacher
supposed to prepare young people for adult life?
Mardi, your son is very vociferous
when it comes to gay rights and things.
Would you prefer that he was less so?
Well, in honesty, I would say yes.
It's really a very difficult life for a homosexual,
and I think he's suffered so much,
and his life would be less stressful.
[Peter] So, we're going out for a day's outing.
Where are we off to, Heather?
Copperlode Dam.
- You ever been there? - No.
What about you, Mum?
No, I've never been there, I'd love to go.
Yes, we're going.
My stepfather
was a pretty old-fashioned patriarchal authoritarian.
This is Edwin, is that his name?
Edwin, yeah.
He was physically violent towards me.
He'd fly into a rage, and go physically berserk.
I can remember times when he gave me the strap,
and the red welt marks would swell up and last for days.
Another time in a rage,
he broke a leg off a dining room chair to beat me with.
He swung at me with an axe.
If I hadn't ducked, he probably would've hit me in the head.
[Mardi] Oh...
I was really upset about the way that he treated Peter, yes.
He was a very aggressive man, and very...
Oh, he was brutal at times, really.
[Heather] I was very scared of my father.
I can remember Peter getting many, many, many bashings,
far worse than he would let on.
And your mother didn't intervene or...?
There were several occasions
when my stepfather was so violent and threatening
that my mother had to call the police.
They came and repeatedly warned him that he would be arrested.
In the end, he always calmed down
in front of the police, and got away with it.
It was so bad that I often said to my mother, you know,
"Can't we leave?"
[Heather] I still, to this day,
carry scars from how he treated my brothers.
It was a terrible time,
and I don't know why Peter's such a good person
because he could've quite easily gone the other way.
The experience of abuse from my stepfather
made me inclined to stand up to bullies,
to take on tyrants, to challenge people who are doing bad things.
[Fanfare]
[Newsreader] Vladimir Putin has signed a decree
banning so-called homosexual propaganda in Russia,
which effectively bans gay rights rallies, and could be
used to prosecute anyone voicing support for homosexuals.
[Stephen] Russia, so violently homophobic,
and the example of Chechnya, which is like a sort of bubble
inside Russia, I mean,
that is just unspeakable what's going on there.
[Newsreader] Here in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov,
whose security forces are accused of
abduction and torture.
Really, really awful levels of homophobia,
and murder of gay people.
[Translation] Here, a man is a man,
a woman is a woman, an animal is an animal and a dog is a dog.
[Shouting]
[Newsreader] The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin,
has thanked soccer's world governing body, FIFA,
for choosing his country to host the 2018 World Cup.
Angry fighters like Peter
are as needed now as they ever have been.
We are honoured to be in this tough and fair fight.
[Peter] With the World Cup in June,
what can we do to help support the Russian activists?
Could I go there and do some kind of protest
to draw attention to what's happening in Russia?
We have Peter going very much into the lion's den.
He's off to Moscow to campaign.
So, my job is to get Peter to Moscow,
and to do everything that I can to keep him safe.
Kind of want him back, as well, in one piece.
Let's just go over safety.
The mobiles of all of us are in an emergency WhatsApp group.
Obviously, that's encrypted, including your emergency mobile.
Could I just caution
about contacting any of these Russian groups,
'cause they're gonna almost certainly be under surveillance
by the Russian security services so you make contact with them,
then they know that I'm there and where I am.
There are very few people know that you're going to Russia.
Match tickets in case you have to show immigration.
[Peter] I'm quite nervous. Russia is not a safe place.
It's a country where homophobia is the norm,
really excessive and often violent homophobia.
There's the dictation button.
How do I get to the Kremlin?
And then hit the button, that's it, and then go.
And then hit the little speaker button next to Russian.
Hm.
[Dramatic music]
Here's my England flag, which is sort of a decoy
to suggest that I am really a genuine English football fan.
This is my rainbow flag for Moscow,
which I hope to display at some point in Red Square.
Although I've done over 3,000 direct actions in my lifetime,
I'm still very, very nervous about this trip.
You know, I'm feeling a little bit physically ill, in fact.
[Interviewer] Have you been to see the doctor recently,
and do they know that you're going overseas to do a protest?
My doctors have said very clearly,
"No more head injuries, you've had enough."
And friends of mine are saying,
"This is really, really dangerous.
"You could end up dead."
[Dramatic music continues]
In the eyes of the Russian authorities,
I am a troublemaker.
My past protests in Russia
have been very bad PR for the Putin regime.
[People cheering]
[Peter] With all the world's media shining on Russia,
it would be a tragedy if the World Cup passed off
without anyone drawing attention to the human rights abuses
against LGBT people in Russia, and, in particular, in Chechnya.
There's been 15 or 20 countries over the years
that I've managed to evade their security checks.
What day does Red Square open again? Tomorrow?
After tomorrow.
After tomorrow? So, they're open on Thursday?
My news release has been sent out to the media,
calling out FIFA over giving Russia the World Cup,
and Russia over its abuse of LGBT human rights.
The one thing all tyrannies fear
is a media coverage of their human rights abuses.
Protest has such power because it gets media coverage
shining a spotlight on persecution.
They don't want the message to get out to the wider world
about what they're doing to their own people.
[Keys clacking]
[Peter sighs]
I'm just so fucking exhausted.
[Interviewer] I know you are.
[Whispering] This is my Brazil football shirt,
which I'm wearing in order to get through security
into the cordoned area around the Kremlin.
I've got several placards that I could use today,
but these are the two that I think.
It's either this one. - Mm-hm.
Or this one.
[Dramatic music]
[Reporter] The FIFA World Cup kicks off in Moscow tonight,
with the host nation, Russia, taking on Saudi Arabia.
I am a bit concerned that my email and phone
might be monitored by the Russian authorities,
so I'm heading over to a World Cup fringe event
to discreetly hand out information
about my planned protest to the assembled media.
- Today? - Yeah, today.
So, if you can come today, that would be brilliant.
- So... - Ah!
Although I have very strong convictions,
I've also got quite debilitating self-doubt.
There's a fear about failure,
the worry about arrest and possibly being beaten up.
I've always got an overpowering headache
from the nervous tension
whenever I'm doing a direct action protest.
My stomach's churning over. I actually feel physically ill.
[Dramatic music]
[Horns being blown]
[Music builds]
[Horns, whistles]
Get around this way.
There can be no normal sporting relation
with an abnormal regime like that of Vladimir Putin.
Putin sanctioned the 2013 law...
Oh, sorry, hi.
[Man speaking Russian]
Sorry, Engli, Engli, Engli.
It's a bit too quickly, an action.
Can I check your documents, thanks?
President Putin sanctioned
the 2013 law that has led to the persecution of LGBT Russians.
I asked you to stop.
President Putin has failed to stop the violence,
anti-gay witch-hunts in Chechnya.
I asked you to stop your action.
Even President Putin doesn't have the right
to override the Constitution.
I know, but time to...
I'm being apprehended?
I want to stay here with the journalists, though.
No, no, stop.
I want the Russian government to uphold the Constitution.
Right now, you're breaking Russian law.
OK.
[Dramatic music]
[Person speaking Russian quietly]
Detained and charged by Moscow police.
Holding up a placard
highlighting the plight of gay men in Chechnya.
Peter Tatchell didn't feel that he was breaking the law.
..who was detained has been released today.
He joins us now.
Under President Putin, there has been a long...
My protest was about
the criminalisation of LGBT equality.
Just as I'd hoped, it stole Putin's thunder.
I want the story
not to be just about Russia hosting the World Cup.
It's put LGBT rights in the headlines around the world.
[Producer] That was fantastic, Peter. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
- Take care of yourself. - Yeah, thank you.
- Bye-bye. - Bye-bye.
[Exhaling wearily]
The fact that somebody wants to fight for us,
and also to put yourself in danger,
we need that help, we need to raise awareness.
It's for you. Thank you.
[Police siren]
[Gentle music]
An impression people have of you is that you're a one-man band.
We're gonna do it as soon as he starts speaking.
Moves his mouth, yeah.
All the work I've done over the last five decades
has been collaborative.
It's never been me alone.
Protect human rights.
Protect human rights in Syria.
Too vague, too vague. UK airdrops now.
It's gotta be something specific and concrete.
I'm often the front person.
UK airdrops now.
Without the other people supporting
and campaigning alongside,
none of these positive changes would've happened.
We'd like to ask Jeremy...
Peter, I think...
What's happening in Aleppo is a modern-day Guernica.
Peter, could we leave these sorts of questions, please?
[Peter] Good morning. Can I give you a leaflet?
Thank you very much.
Do you feel good about yourself?
I guess I do, at a certain level,
feel a sense of self-satisfaction.
Lay some placards down so people can see the message.
What does this LGBT?
It means gay people.
Why you coming here? Why you don't go to synagogue?
Go to synagogue. - We do both.
- Or church. - We do both.
We're here at Regents Park Mosque today,
reaching out to our Muslim brothers and sisters.
We want to create dialogue
so we can live in peace and harmony together for the future.
The challenges that the Muslims and LGBT people face
are very similar -
discrimination in the workplace
or being the victims of hate crime.
We're trying to encourage solidarity
between Muslim people and gay people.
- When you become homosexual... - Yeah.
- ..you need to have that fixed. - No, that's not true.
Yes, yes, that's it.
I've contributed, with others, to so many positive changes.
Salaam-alaikum.
I can see so many injustices that need fighting.
There are certain sins, do you understand?
There's nothing explicitly in the Quran
that says homosexuality is wrong.
There's no punishments in the Quran.
I'm also the kind of person that never feels satisfied.
When I have a victory, I don't dwell on it very much.
I just think - what's next?
[Singing and chanting]
Looking back over my life, I feel satisfaction
that, together with others, we've shown
that you don't have to accept the way things are.
You have led us through this...
No, I have not led you, I have supported you.
I love other people.
I love freedom, equality and justice,
and that's what drives me forward.
I don't like to see people suffering.
[Singing and chanting]
It's very unusual in a political lifetime
to have one figure symbolising a cause,
and being active over such a long period of time.
There's no doubting his passion, his sincerity, his devotion,
but, above all, his courage.
History will judge Peter Tatchell
as one of the most interesting, brave, passionate
and effective campaigners.
He still holds out a vision of liberation
for all people.
He's identifying injustices around the world,
and going and highlighting them.
With your track record, you've been proved right
again and again and again,
and the world has caught up with you.
Our next guest is a notorious pulpit crasher
and gay rights activist.
Please welcome 120 pounds of pink fury,
Peter Tatchell, ladies and gentlemen.
In the Bible, it's OK to sell your daughter into slavery.
Um...
You don't hear any advice
from the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury about how much...
what the going price is.
My assessment of Peter now
is that he's been a figure for good and equality.
Here is a man with deep conviction.
He's rocked the boat.
And there's a sense in which
there is a parallel to Jesus Christ.
Jesus was prepared to stand up against
the powerful people in society, represent the smaller people.
Where some of us might still question his tactics, no-one
can actually doubt that he's on the right side of history.
Makes you feel so humbled
to think that Peter's so well regarded.
My mother initially could not accept my homosexuality,
but she began to accept that I was motivated
by the kinds of moral principles that underpin Christianity.
I've shown him how to be compassionate towards people,
I think,
and to stand up for what he believes in,
and do what he believes is right.
Although she's still
uncomfortable with homosexuality,
she doesn't see it as a great terrible sin.
It's a minor sin.
How would you feel one day if she called you up and said,
"Peter, I've been wrong all these years"?
It isn't gonna happen.
It's not gonna happen? Alright.
I just say to myself,
"Peter's happy, and I love him,
"and, if he's happy, then I am, too,
"doing what you want to do, yes."
Thank you, Mum.
[Cheering]
[Newsreader] Soccer's world governing body, FIFA,
has chosen Qatar to stage the tournament in 2022.
It's the first time the World Cup
will be played in the Arab world.
[Peter] Qatar has a very poor record on LGBT human rights.
My plan is to work with Qatari dissidents
to help shine a spotlight
on the human rights abuses in their country.
[Cheering]
[Elton John] ♪ I believe in love ♪
♪ It's all we got ♪
♪ Love has no boundaries ♪
♪ Costs nothing to touch ♪
♪ War makes money cancer sleeps ♪
♪ Curled up in my father and that means something to me ♪
♪ Churches and dictators
♪ Politics and papers ♪
♪ Everything crumbles
♪ Sooner or later ♪
♪ But love ♪
♪ I believe in love ♪
♪ I believe in love it's all we got ♪
♪ Love has no boundaries no borders to cross ♪
♪ Love is simple ♪
♪ Hate breeds ♪
♪ Those who think difference is the child of disease ♪
♪ Father and son make love and guns ♪
♪ Families together kill someone ♪
♪ Without love ♪
♪ I believe in love ♪