Gay News; Europe's Largest Circulation Newspaper for Homosexuals
London: Gay News Ltd. [Robert Palmer], [1974]. 8 Issues #52-#59. Tabloid format, 44cm, printed on cheap newsprint. 20-24pp. each issue. Bright and strong, uniform toning of the cheap paper stock, with some light edgewear and fraying in places; internally clean, illustrated throughout, a generally very good run of issues.
The first "mainstream" newspaper for the gay community, founded in June 1972, with a circulation of 18-20,000 within the UK. Male homosexuality, or at least sexual contact between adult men, had only been legalized in Britain in 1967, and even post legalization there were numerous legal hoops to jump through and pitfalls to avoid. Gay news was constantly coming under legal scrutiny for running contact ads (in a section entitled "Love Knoweth No Laws", which skirted very close to UK laws regarding soliciting. The editor during the majority of the 1970's, Dennis Lemon, was personally taken to court in 1976 by the self-appointed guardian of British decency; a woman named Mary Whitehouse, who accused Lemon and the newspaper of blasphemy, which gives you some idea of what late-1970's Britain was like, despite every channel of mainstream TV being occupied by openly gay, or gay-coded, characters and performers, many of whom featured in the pages of the newspaper. Whitehouse won the court case, resulting in Lemon being fined and sentenced to jail (although his jail sentence was commuted under appeal). That in itself, although expensive, didn't sink Gay News, but survival in its original form only lasted until 1983. Like many early LGBTQ publications, its focus was partly upon connecting and organizing disparate and isolated community members into larger more supportive groups, thus the letters and contact pages were a lifeline and rallying point for early readers.
Price: $300.00