Colin (Michael Cashman) and Barry (Gary Hailes) — Photo: BBC
Long-running British soap opera EastEnders cut a planned romance between two gay characters in the 1980s due to the introduction of anti-gay legislation.
The show, which has been airing since 1985, caused public outrage in 1987 when it aired a relationship between characters Barry Clark and Colin Russell. The couple shared the first ever same-sex kiss in a British soap opera — a simple kiss on the forehead — but that was enough for the show to be branded “filth” and “EastBenders” by angry viewers.
Actor Gary Hailes, who played Barry, has now revealed that their relationship was expected to progress much further, including Barry coming out to his family and receiving homophobic backlash, but the storyline was axed after the government passed “Section 28.”
Section 28 was an amendment to existing legislation which prohibited local governments from “[promoting] homosexuality or [publishing] material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” and banned schools from teaching the “acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”
As then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in 1987, “Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”
Speaking on the Distinct Nostalgia podcast, Hailes said EastEnders abandoned the gay plotline in December 1987 “because of Section 28.”
The legislation came into effect in May 1988, but the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which aired EastEnders, opted to axe the storyline ahead of the amendment’s introduction.
“The BBC found themselves in a difficult position. They had to be seen to be doing right by the law,” he said of the broadcaster. “There was stuff we shot of Barry coming out to his dad and the backlash. They changed it and that helped put the brakes on what they could do with the characters.”
He added: “Like Romeo and Juliet they were not allowed to be together.””
Section 28 wasn’t repealed in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland until 2003. In Scotland, the amendment was repealed in 2000.
Though Hailes’ character was cut from the soap opera, the character of Colin Russell — portrayed by Michael Cashman — persisted, and the BBC ultimately decided to pursue a new same-sex romance storyline in 1988, after the legislation had come into effect.
Trey Cunningham, an internationally-ranked high hurdler who made the 110-meter finals at the U.S. Olympic trials last month, has come out publicly as gay.
The 25-year-old former Florida State University standout came out privately to family and friends at age 20, calling the process "the scariest thing I've ever done" in an exclusive interview with The New York Times.
For Cunningham, who grew up in rural Winfield, Alabama, raised by a conservative family, the idea of being gay was quite foreign. He says it took him a few years to accept his own sexuality, and the idea that his life would be different from how he thought it would be. His parents also initially pushed back on the news.
A California man has been convicted on murder and hate crime charges for the 2018 stabbing death of a gay, Jewish University of Pennsylvania student.
Samuel Woodward, 26, was found guilty of first-degree murder, plus a hate crime enhancement, for killing Blaze Bernstein, who had been visiting his family in southern California on winter break when he went missing around January 2, 2018.
After eight days, authorities searching for him found his body in a shallow grave at a nearby park.
Both Woodward and Bernstein had attended the same high school, Orange County School of the Arts, for a little over two years. According to testimony at trial, Woodward said he matched Bernstein on the dating app Tinder, in 2017.
Russian authorities reportedly forced at least two men to participate in a sting designed to entrap and imprison gay men.
Matvey Volodin, a Moscow resident who creates adult content under the name USSRboy, was lured by police in the autonomous Republic of Dagestan, located in the North Caucasus region, according to the independent investigative Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Volodin -- who reportedly identifies as a heterosexual who has sex with men -- came to Dagestan in late May in response to an invitation from presumed fans who contacted him online and told them they had rented him an apartment in Makhachkala, Dagestan's largest city.
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