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Today, 36% think homosexual acts are 'always' or 'mostly' wrong, compared with 62% in 1983, and former Sun editor claims to regret the way he portraye
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UK now far more accepting of homosexuality, survey finds
The British public has become far more accepting of homosexuality in the last 25 years, according to a government-backed survey.
In 1983, the first British Social Attitudes survey found that 62% thought homosexual acts were "always" or "mostly" wrong, but the latest research, conducted in 2008, found that that figure had fallen to 36%.
Additionally, 39% of the 4,486 adults questioned in 2008 said that homosexuality was "never" wrong, while 10% said it was "rarely wrong".
It also revealed that while older people were less accepting than younger ones of homosexuality, the trends showed that all age groups had become more liberal in their opinion of same-sex relationships.
Speaking on Radio 4's Today show, former EastEnders actor and out gay Labour MEP Michael Cashman credited the politicians who had changed the law in advance of public opinion, but warned against complacency, saying that newly-won rights "can be taken away".
"Even twelve years ago, it was still illegal to be gay. You could only have consensual sex in private with another man and the definition of private was so narrow as to be ludicrous," he said.
"There are still bastions of intolerance. We witnessed the vote … in the House of Lords against equality."
Cashman also praised Stonewall and Peter Tatchell for their efforts to change attitudes and laws, and the courage of people who came out in defiance of the tabloid depiction of homosexuality prevalent in the past.
But he said that "if you scrape off the top there is still a layer of homophobia" in the tabloids, which was denied by Kelvin MacKenzie, who edited the Sun from 1981 to 1994.
MacKenzie claimed to now regret his notorious headlines of that period, such as "The Pulpit Poofs" and "EastBenders", and said that nowadays the tabloids "couldn't give a damn" about homosexuality.
"The reality is that in my days running the Sun, if a pop star was suspected of being a homosexual, that was a story. Now the reverse is true. If he is homosexual it's not a story at all," he said.
MacKenzie said that his attitude towards homosexuality was now "dramatically different" from his time at the Sun and that due to anti-homophobia laws, Britain was now "a fantastic country in that respect".
