LEADING gay activist Peter Tatchell has made a fresh call for the age of consent for all sexual activities to be reduced to 14.
His demand comes ahead of an amendment to the Crime and Disorder Bill in Parliament to be tabled by Labour MP Ann Keen which seeks to reduce the age of consent for gay men from 18 to 16, bringing it into line with guidelines laid down for hetrosexual relationships.
The 46-year-old Australian, who claims to have been involved in more than 1000 civil disobedience protests in the 29 years he has been campaigning for lesbian and gay human rights, said he expected MPs to vote ''massively in favour'' of Ms Keen's motion later this month.
Mr Tatchell, who is involved with the campaigning group, OutRage!, told The Herald: ''Once we have won the battle for 16, OutRage! will push forward its campaign to get the age of consent reduced to 14 for both hetrosexual and homosexual relationships.''
However, his demand brought an angry riposte from Church leaders. Mrs Ann Allen, convener of the Church of Scotland's Board of Social Responsibility, said: ''We would be 100% opposed to lowering the age of consent to 14. It would give entirely the wrong message to adolescents and would put enormous pressure on young people who are not at the point of wanting to be sexually active.''
Father Tom Connelly, spokes-man for the Catholic Church in Scotland, said: ''Our position on this matter is quite clear. We believe any sexual relationship outwith marriage is wrong at any time irrespective of age.''
Mr Tatchell said: ''OutRage! believes the age of consent should be reduced to 14 for everyone both gay and straight.
''Nearly half of all teenagers have their first sexual experience by the age of 16. Most after the age of 14. For this reason 14 seems the fairer and more realistic age of consent. Our motive is to reduce the criminalisation of young people who have consenting relationships. We also want to remove the legal obstacles to earlier and more explicit sex education in schools.''
He pointed out that 12 European countries now had an age of consent of 14 or lower and claimed that in the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Malta the age of consent was effectively 12 for both hetrosexual and homosexual relationships.
Mr Tatchell, who was in Glasgow last night, added: ''OutRage! wants the reduction in the age of consent to be backed up by better quality and franker sex education in all schools.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article