From Primary Legislation to public presence. The language of Gay rights: from legislation to lobbying

Discrimination in terms of race and sexual orientation has been one of the key issues at the forefront of public interest and debate throughout the EU over the recent years. A spate of homophobic hate-crimes has recently spread out across Europe reaching peaks of unprecedented violence both in the United Kingdom and in Italy. Yet, despite clear evidence that the issue of ‘sexual orientation’ needs to be addressed urgently both in the legislative and public sphere, to date, very little appears to have been done at a European parliamentary level, to the extent that there is scant evidence of relevant materials published by the European Commission on the issue. Over the last ten years, the legislative framework in the United Kingdom has been substantially and successfully amended by means of a number of Parliamentary Acts (Local Government Act (c.26) 2003, Criminal Justice Act (c.44) 2003, Civil Partnership Act (c.33) 2004, Equality Act (c.3) 2006, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (c.22) 2008) to take into consideration the rights and entitlements of citizens whose sexual orientation differs from the so-called ‘norm’. It must be said, however, that such amendments have, on the whole, come about due to the action of grassroots pressure groups such as Stonewall and, at a later date, Outrage.The aim of this paper is to investigate the vagueness (Bhatia et al 2003) and ambiguity of UK legal acts which concern the rights and entitlements of homosexuals, and to forward an approach to the issues of the comprehension and comprehensibility of such texts. It will also examine the performativity (Gotti M.& Dossena, M. (eds) 2001 and immediacy of the language of public campaigns (Rice, R. E. & Atkin, C. K. (eds), 2001) in terms of the empowering function and political potential of both legal texts and public campaigns.