The twilight world of the homosexual has emerged from the dark alleys of my fumbling pretty-boy years and gone very high street. Talented lesbians and gay men from every mince of life have broken out of the ghetto and now muck about in the mainstream without hiding their sexuality under a bushel or running scared of the sleazy Sunday scandal rags. No one cares what you do between the sheets – well, not in Britain anyway – and it just doesn’t sell copy anymore, not even in the Sunday Mail. No, hypocrisy is the sin that pisses people off the most these days. Even in the macho world of sport there are tentative signs that the love that dares not speak its name is whispering in the showers without causing a stir in the scrum or a tirade from the terraces.

All of this should cheer up the war-weary. Nobody ever won their rights by asking nicely and saying please and it’s taken hand-to-hand combat with the hard of hearing to get this far. Long decades of agitation have finally paid off.  There’s no room for complacency of course. There were 5,000 reported homophobic attacks last year and we must all guard against a moral backlash – think the Russian descent into religious conservatism as an example. But now that gay people have become so ordinary and everyday, what’s the point to an entire sub-culture dedicated to difference and enforced separation? Who needs a gay bar when you’ll get a hearty welcome down your local even when you’ve got your arm around the boyf?

Or will you?

This post briefly went out as a ‘ghost post’ a few weeks ago when I inadvertently pressed the wrong key and suffered a bad case of premature publication. Hence some of the comments. Oops!