Tue 29 Dec 2009 In: International News View at Wayback View at NDHA
British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell claims the internationally feted and flamboyantly gay Quentin Crisp was ignorant, pompous and homophobic. Quentin Crisp Writing in The Independent today, Tatchell who is an outspoken proponent of aggressive, confrontational action in standing up to discrimination against gays, says Crisp was brave in his early years when he stood up to anti-gay abuse meted out to him in London. But, Tatchell says, Crisp became a "self-hating, arrogant, homophobic gadfly" who "denounced the gay rights movement, slammed homosexuality as 'a terrible disease" and declared "the world would be better without homosexuals." Peter Tatchell Tatchell was writing on the eve of the broadcast in the UK of a television movie based on Crisp's life after the book and movie of his early years, The Naked Civil Servant, left off. Tatchell says the new movie sanitizes Crisp's views. Tatchell recently joined the chorus of anger over the booking of homophobic reggae singer Beenie Man for Auckland's Big Day Out - a booking subsequently cancelled - and has lately announced that several physical attacks he suffered in gay protests, including in Moscow, have left him with slight brain damage.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 29th December 2009 - 11:47pm