Whilst the Scottish media threw themselves wholeheartedly into the brawl, none participated quite so vociferously against repeal and its supposed “sustained assault on family values” as The Daily Record under the editorship of Martin Clarke. The tabloid was part of the Trinity Mirror newspaper group and exposed a chilling totalitarian, heterosexual environment; aggressive as it was intolerant. Journalists from the paper privately expressed their horror at the hateful ‘Keep the Clause’ campaign to the National Union of Journalists, but remained silent throughout Clarke’s intimidating reign as editor. In an unusual spectacle, newspapers turned on each other. A Sunday Herald editorial blasted: “It is regrettable that the over-simplifications and misinformation is encouraged and inflamed by first and foremost The Daily Record and some other tabloid newspapers, which criticise the parliament for ineffectiveness yet seem content to pursue the uninformed, oafish politics of the barstool”. Seizing every opportunity to promote support for ‘Keep the Clause’, The Daily Record’s editorial shrieked: “Free speech for everyone… So we weren’t wrong when we predicted yesterday what the reaction would be… You have to admire the man’s (Brian Souter’s) bravery. Dissent isn’t something that tends to go down very well these days. Scotland’s most tedious newspaper – and there’s some competition for that title – accused him of trying to influence ‘free and open debate’. …You have to wonder what planet these people are on… The gay pressure groups operate thanks to council hand-outs and private donations… Only the feeble and discredited Tories are prepared to oppose the repeal of the gay lessons ban in Parliament”. (Aided by a privileged and influential Church, powerful businesspeople and most of the Scottish press)! Of the likely backlash against Souter, The Daily Record warned “Brian” to beware. The Sunday Herald was scathing. “They long ago forfeited the right to be treated as a serious newspaper”.

Former Religious Affairs Correspondent, Tom Brown - or ‘Brigadier’ Brown, as he became known in ScotsGay magazine; a sobriquet earned from his recollections of life in the Boys Brigade - wrote a regular column for The Daily Record. His opinions on what he described as “the sad, seedy perversions” of homosexuals was already in the public domain. “…We Boys’ Brigaders goose-stepped to our drill hall, we always regarded the rival youth army as ‘cissies…’ none of that nonsense for your decidedly butch Boys’ Brigade members. Our uniform was… spit-and-polish boots, a belt and sparkling buckle… In Kirkcaldy we were so manly we refused to wear the pansy little pillbox hat. Nothing nancy-boy there. And DEFINITELY no hanky-panky in the well-drilled ranks - or out of them”.  He wasted no time lambasting the “politically-correct politicians and the gay lobby” before settling down to give Brian Souter a make-over: “At home, he is just another parent – with four young children, three at state schools – with every father’s worries about his children’s future”, he gushed. Souter was just doing something “for all parents”. Brown soon revealed how he really saw this campaign developing: “People v Politicians”. And, echoing former Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher’s campaign to empower groups likely to remain faithful to the cause of Conservatism, he praised: “Parent power…” warning, “with the money from his charitable trust, the Souter Foundation, there will be an intensive four-month campaign of demos, multi-media advertising and lobbying”. This was supposed to counter “the well-funded, articulate gay movement with its access to the highest echelons of government”. It was an extraordinary assertion to make given the efforts of the late Baroness Janet Young, patron of the well-funded Christian Institute, who had successfully scuppered MP’s proposals to repeal Section 28 in England and Wales in the elected House of Commons, by blocking reform in the un-elected House of Lords. As for support in the “highest echelons of government”, where was it and what had they achieved? Most equality legislation concerning gays had, until this time, been foisted upon the UK by Europe. The Equality Network, supporting gay equality in Scotland on a budget of £3,000-a-year, hardly constituted “well-funded” compared to ‘Keep the Clause’, which, along with Souter’s money, was reported to have received offers of financial support from political and religious groups in America. When it came to influence, the Christian right had a well-established strategy of developing lobbying skills, placing young Christians as researchers with MSPs, hoping they would become politicians or civil servants that would go on to shape policy from a Christian standpoint. The Christian Institute and Christian Action Research and Education (CARE) both operated in this way within the House of Commons and House of Lords. With around 20,000 members, the Evangelical Alliance already had its own lobbyist in place in the Scottish Executive. His name was Jeremy Balfour and was reported in Scotland on Sunday saying: “I suspect the only advantage we have (over other people) is that Christians are slightly better informed than the bulk of society and have a better understanding of how politics works”. Whilst militant religionists were already well placed in the Scottish media there was not one out lesbian, gay or bisexual prepared to counter the ‘Keep the Clause’ propaganda. Nonetheless, The Daily Record insisted; “all Mr Souter is doing is evening up the odds a little for the silent majority”. In another editorial, The Record thought “Brian… big enough to look after himself, but in case he needs a hand…” they would be there to offer support “against allowing homosexual propaganda in schools”. And support they did! After spitefully turning on “trendy cheerleaders in unpopular papers…” for criticising Souter’s involvement in “sensitive matters”, The Record publicly reassured him with their advice to “ignore them”. Heady with what they perceived to be such clear support from the “majority” of “ordinary people”, their divisive, homophobic campaign gathered pace. “… PROMOTING homosexuality in schools is now official government policy… Outside Government, the well-funded gay pressure groups will continue their noisy campaign to have the section repealed. We warned from the outset that there would be a backlash on this issue from the majority of ordinary people who do not hate homosexuals, but who do NOT want their children taught about them at school”. On what should be done about the “sensitive issue” of repealing Section 28, The Record trumpeted their demands to the Scottish Executive: “They should quietly drop it before it does any more damage”.

While Scotland lagged behind the rest of Europe on gay equality, it was still going too far for columnist, Tom Brown who enjoyed parading his conscience across the pages of The Daily Record. “Taking gay liberties to the extreme… Enough is enough”, his headline shrieked. “This may seem perverse…” he began his back-handed compliment, “but I have no problem with giving equal legal rights to homosexual partners… Or, for that matter, if they are the financially-dependent home-maker - the role that women used to have”. Brown was commenting on news stories of the rights, (or rather lack of them) awarded to gay couples. Julian Dykes, a victim of the Soho nail bomb attack on a gay bar was compensated after losing his wife Andrea while Gary Partridge was denied compensation under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme despite suffering appalling injuries and losing his partner. In another case, after his partner, whom he had cared for over a long period had died; Martin Fitzpatrick fought hard and won his case in the House of Lords against eviction from the house he had shared with him for 20 years. Such variants in the progress towards equality did not perturb the mean-spirited ‘Brigadier’. “What worries me is that this will be taken as capitulation to the homosexual cause. …The signal to demand more”.

Gays were increasingly seen in the media grouped together under one common heading. And everything ‘they’ argued was portrayed as a ‘demand’. It was small wonder that so much of the public began to fear that ‘gays’ were somehow at the root of the ‘problem’ in much the same way that Jews were made a scapegoat for much of Germany’s problems before the Second World War and a hundred years ago in The Daily Record itself, which featured such uncomfortable anti-Semitic sentiments as this report on German picture-postcards: “An excellent one was a drawing in which faces were designed out of Jewish names – for instance, ‘Moses’ written in a round and flowery hand would be transformed into a wonderful Israelite type… It was not actually cruel, the spirit was of fun and derision than of anger; but it was most unkind, for the fun carried a bitter dart, doubtless, to poor Jewry’s heart”.

‘Brigadier’ Brown picked up on a misleading report that had appeared in The Daily Telegraph. A report that sensationally and falsely implied that the gay rights organisation, Outrage! had issued a new policy statement, shortly before a vote on the age of consent in the House of Lords, suggesting the next stage of their campaign was the legalisation of public sex and sex in public toilets. “Gay groups seek to legalise gay sex in public lavatories”, The Telegraph had cried, after rehashing a law reform submission Outrage! had submitted to the Home Office Sex Offences Review Team a year earlier. Brown outlined what “they” (gays) were going to do next: “Now that sex between males is acceptable in private - and, it seems, on the telly - they want to legalise it in public lavatories, saunas and ‘cruising’ areas”. He sniffed: “If they have their way, it won’t be safe to spend a penny. …Streets where promiscuous homosexuals pick up partners will become no-go areas. Now they have been allowed to parade down Princes Street and take over the Millennium Dome, anything goes in public”. (The route of the Gay Pride march, agreed by the police, skirted Edinburgh’s main shopping street and the ‘take over’ of the former Millennium Dome by gays had been highlighted by a brouhaha in the press when a school cancelled a trip to see the Dome after gays had organised an event there, which included the Gay Men’s Chorus). Brown would not give ground on his inflammatory language. Under a photo of Peter Tatchell appeared the caption: “Out of order: Peter Tatchell’s outrageous demands give homosexuals a bad name”. ‘Brigadier’ Brown talked mince. “No doubt the politically-correct pink-brigade - with its advance guard in the Scottish Cabinet and Parliament - will say this is homophobic scare-mongering. Not so… The ‘gays,’ and their friends in power, are their own worst enemies, because they simply do not know when to stop pushing”.

The language Tom Brown used against gays was not out of place in the Scottish media: Vilifying the minority, portraying them as a threat to society and to the welfare of the young, asserting they were part of an international conspiracy, associating them with disease and corruption and playing on the public’s fears and prejudices. At the time, Britain had no incitement to hatred laws to protect lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgendered from the press. Brown continued: “Is it any wonder that there is a backlash from the majority, who say the line on decency and protection of family values has to be drawn somewhere…? We already know to steer clear of places like the ‘Pink Triangle’ in the Broughton Street area of Edinburgh and certain pubs in Glasgow and elsewhere. Isn’t that enough…? What the gay lobby and their friends in government have failed to realise is that the tolerant majority have now woken up to the fact that the increasing demands of homosexuals and their permissive pals can never be satisfied. They have decided to draw the line - here and now”.

In one of the ‘Brigadier’s’ frequent blasts at homosexuals, he cried: “Hell is a night out in the company of Dale Winton, Graham Norton and Julian Clary - a worse Hell would be a night IN with them”. The Daily Record provided a computer-simulated picture of Brown wearing his familiar dickey-bow, sandwiched between entertainers Dale Winton and Graham Norton. The message was clear. Gay men were acceptable only when they conformed. The Record’s sister paper, The Sunday Mail praised Steven Flannery and Michael Johnston, a gay couple who opened Glasgow’s Bar 10 and ran the Brunswick Hotel in its Merchant City. “Neither are political animals. They don’t go on gay rights marches, display banners, or wear ‘right-on’ gay badges”. They were decent. Normal. Invisible.

Tom ‘Brigadier’ Brown has since joined other religionists to work for Scotland on Sunday.

Joan Burnie, or ‘Old Mother Burnie’ – as The Daily Record’s convent-educated agony aunt became known in ScotsGay magazine – never sought to question The Record’s efforts to undermine repeal of Section 28 in her columns. A parent apparently wrote to her and explained how her young son had tried to kill himself after being bullied at school. The parent claimed teachers had dealt with the subject “sensitively”. Joan seized the moment: “You’re right”; she gleamed. “Schools have a responsibility to protect ALL their pupils from bullying. Clause 28 shouldn’t and doesn’t come in to it…” But the incident had taken place before Section 28 had become such a burning issue, threatening to persuade teachers to err on the side of caution and avoid getting involved in cases of homophobic bullying.

Burnie’s conservative views often evoked controversy. “Where once cameras stopped dead at decency and the bedroom doors, now they glide right in and linger lustily through every grunt, groan and simulated orgasm”, she sniffed. Burnie built her reputation despising erotica, chastising TV soaps where gay sex was “glamourised” and - unusually for a self-proclaimed ‘agony aunt’ – labelled a transsexual “he, she or it” and another, a “freak”. Answering a letter on her problem page during this time, “a normal 17-year-old” with a girlfriend spilled out his love for a boy at his college. After dismissing it as a “pash”, Old Mother Burnie suggested, “some things are better left unsaid. So go on being friends, but don’t try to force it into something else”.

Another letter in the midst of the Section 28 furore chastised Joan Burnie for having any sympathy at all. “I feel you should be sacked as an agony aunt because of your attitude to gay people – you tell them they can’t help being gay, but they can. They are NOT born that way. Men are born with male parts and women with female ones. The only reason anyone is gay is because it is fashionable and trendy. If you just told the truth and said it was wrong and perverted, you might do some good for a change”.

The Daily Record’s code of morality had remained unchallenged for decades. Stories of a sexual nature outside heterosexual marriage were usually branded controversial, sleazy or sick. The tabloid’s campaign against the repeal of Section 28 was relentless; its opinion bullish. The paper’s tone ever more shrill as it remained convinced it could do anything it liked with impunity.

The Record announced that: “A controversial new scheme has been launched to help protect pupils from gay-bashing”. Sensible enough! Particularly after a University of London report had shown 82 per cent of English and Welsh schools were aware of homosexual bullying, (although only six per cent made reference to it in any anti-bullying policies). The Record pulled the “controversial” scheme apart. “… Education groups have slammed the policy as ‘political correctness’ gone mad”, they cried. The so-called “education groups” The Record had referred to included the Campaign for Real Education whose spokesman Nick Seaton told The Herald the very idea “resembles a witch hunt in a lot of respects”. Only he wasn’t referring to the victims of bullying! The truth behind the story was that teachers had simply been asked to “monitor” attacks and “register” verbal abuse. ‘Critics’ who wanted Section 28 to stay insisted in The Record: “We deplore bullying wherever it is directed and would never encourage prejudice or unjust discrimination against people of homosexual orientation”. A 26-year-old Scot put them right in his letter to The Herald from his new home in London. He claimed he had been “verbally abused, spat upon, beaten up and had stones thrown” at him on his way home from school on “a virtual daily basis”. He asked how many other children might have left Scotland for the same reasons. Judging by what little research was available from organisations left to pick up the pieces: Thousands! The Fraserburgh Herald’s prolific letter writer, R S Stephen offered a firm solution: “Christians have the answer to bullying in the restoration of the school belt… Proverbs 22.15”.

Brian Souter’s charity, The Souter Foundation came under the spotlight after questions were raised over the rights of charities to offer financial support to political campaigns. The Record turned on Glasgow’s Gay & Lesbian Centre, also registered as a charity, disclosing how “gay groups registered as charities are fighting tooth and nail for the removal of the controversial clause”. The Centre had been openly campaigning for the repeal of Section 28, a law that had, after all, prevented its members from receiving appropriate sex education in schools. Support for the campaign appeared in the Centre’s newsletter Centrepoint. Since the Centre received donations, Brian Souter wasted no time insisting to The Record that he should be at liberty to do the same and donate money to the “heterosexual community” in support of their campaign.

The Record’s editorial team did everything in their power to help Brian Souter make his point. Gay news stories sometimes received interesting juxtapositions. “£1m CAMPAIGN TO HALT U-TURN ON GAY LESSONS” was one of them, sitting next to: “Pink planes to take off”. At a time when Brian Souter’s £1m contribution was on everyone’s minds, Martin Langham had “convinced” financial backers “to provide tens of millions of pounds for his new venture…”, a gay airline company.

Another newspaper supporting the retention of Section 28 was The Scottish Daily Mail, edited in Scotland by Ramsay Smith. The tabloid already had a staggering record of, not just homophobia, but misrepresenting diverse expressions of lawful sexuality in vile rhetoric. An editorial described Brian Souter’s “huge campaign to protect children” as “a public-spirited gesture which will be welcomed by parents throughout Scotland,” adding, “the attempt to open up schools to homosexual propaganda is the personal crusade of Wendy Alexander, Minister of Communities…”, adding that her boss, “Donald Dewar, who absurdly described Section 28 as a ‘badge of shame,’ may live to regret the day he provoked this unnecessary confrontation”.

The Scottish Daily Mail, just as vociferous and vile in its relentless campaign to prevent repeal of Section 28 as The Daily Record, had a long history of working with religious factions to promote their agendas and was ready, willing and able to respond to this new calling.

Next Issue: The Scottish Daily Mail