#clause 28

The proof? Mainly T shirts ... the rainbow apple and the Queens Beach T shirts.

What Larries don't grasp is that in 2014 Louis wouldn't have known what a rainbow apple signified, or known that "queen" is a word for a camp gay man.

I remember being in sixth form in 2014, in Hull where I grew up ... it's a city which has a similar demographic to Doncaster, just 50 miles away.

I was studying English Literature A Level and the text was Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. One of the main characters, Brick, is an alcoholic who is threatened with being sent away to a rehab called Rainbow Hill. He's also gay although this is revealed very slowly.

Our teacher asked us what a rainbow symbolised and in a class of twenty, only two of us knew the answer. There were ten boys in the class and not one of them had a clue!

So, Louis wouldn't have known or he wouldn't have pulled those T shirts over his homophobic head. And that was the last time he wore anything with a rainbow on it.

Agree 100%. Rainbows only became mainstream in 2015, at which point they also started appearing at 1d shows. The standard straight Donny chav who'd never read a book wouldn't have known what a rainbow signified.

Mad Marte also cites Louis naming his clothing range 28 as being proof that he's a proud gay man when the reality is that he probably still doesn't know what Section 28 is.

Marte is Norwegian and something has got very lost in translation, because no gay man or woman in England is trying to reclaim 28 or put a positive spin on it. No gay man would name a clothing range after that evil legislation.

Librarians Against Clause 28

This podcast is AMAZING and so uplifting. It was put together by some of the artists and activists behind Before the Act, the benefit show held in 1988 to oppose Section 28. This was an law passed by the British government that prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities, and had major repercussions for gay art and artists. The organizers of “Before the Act” decided to put on a show of music and theatre, and the guiding principle was that "every single thing performed had to have been written by a lesbian or a gay man".

What happens when a gay and lesbian community spends years asking for regular television coverage of its issues instead of occasional "special documentaries" which tend to anthropologize or mock the subject matter? If you are asking this question in the United States, you might just have to start protesting, elect a mayor, create a coalition (call it NYCCRM), raise money for an alternative network, or program your queer media on public access and other cable channels. If you are asking this question in Britain, look no further, just get those beers or sodas out of the fridge, settle back in your comfy living room chair and tune into Channel Four on Tuesday nights at 11 pm. Then you will see Out On Tuesday, Britain's first regular lesbian and gay television series.

The series is co-produced by Clare Beaven and Susan Ardill[, who] named their production company "Abseil" in recognition of the women who had lowered themselves with ropes (the word abseil is a verb used in England to mean "lowering oneself on a rope") into the House of Lords to protest Clause 28. (Clause 28 bans any federal funding of educational materials that "promote homosexuality." [...]) The image of a woman descending on a rope accompanies the closing credits in every show of the series. [...]

Although it is programmed late at night, the series was immediately attacked by right wing bigots who called on the government to revise the Obscene Publications Act. British TV operates independently of that Act, but the whole system of regulation within commercial parameters could be overthrown by the government in the next few years. Clause 28, which governs local government and education authorities against presenting gay men and lesbians in anything but the most brutally degrading light, could ultimately have an effect on TV and broadcasting.

While it is still possible, Clause 28 is a featured topic on the very first show of Out On Tuesday. The producers decided to see if one could actually "promote homosexuality," and thus approached the world-renowned, if detestable, Saatchi and Saatchi advertising agency: Since agencies love to display their wares and benefit from mock campaigns as teaching exercises, S & S agreed to script a number of "homo-promo" newspapers ads as well as one for TV. Abseil's directors kept their distance during the "creative process." What emerged was a hilarious, but somewhat ignorant and negative, commercial with, as Merck says, "the naffest looking actresses in the world." Beaven thinks she would have modelled the show around how and why, "they came up with this garbage when they come up with great homoerotic ads for perfume, and so on."