Gay in the 21st Century? Time for a bit of Liberalism

Gay in the 21st Century? Time for a bit of Liberalism

Toby Morrison (President, Ex-Political Officer, Ex-Publications Editor, Magdalen College) is an undergraduate in his third year of reading Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

I will never forget the first time I told someone I was gay. It was in my village pub in deepest Norfolk, which will explain many things for those familiar with the phrase “Normal for Norfolk”, and it was one of my dearest friends. I was frightened - but not quite in the way most people were. I was frightened because I didn’t want the revelation to change my life. I didn’t want it to change how people viewed me. I didn’t want it to change who my friends were, nor did I want to change how I acted, nor how terribly I opted to dress. At the time I had a penchant for rugby shirts and sandals, a heinous combination if ever there were one.

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Think the fight for equality is over? Think again

Think the fight for equality is over? Think again

George Wright (Political Officer, Former Deputy Returning Officer, Ex-Treasurer, Ex-Secretary, Ex-Whip, Ex-Committee, St John’s College) is an undergraduate in his third year of reading Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

There are countless things in life for which we should apologise. Damaging a friend’s gentleman’s area with an especially vigorous tennis serve, or breaking the nozzle on my college wife’s Henry Hoover spring to mind as recent cases where I had to deploy my glum face, from which murmurous remorseful splutterings were projected. Conversely, there are plenty of things unworthy of an apology, among which passions and trivial mistakes tend to be counted. More significantly, though, no one should ever feel a duty to apologise for, or feel coerced into obscuring who they are – it’s obvious, isn’t it?

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