The day the world comes out for tolerance

Jerome Taylor and Liam O'Brien: "When Barack Obama came out in support of gay marriage earlier this month, there were many who heralded it as a turning point in the history of equal rights. Symbolism plays a major part in the struggle for acceptance. Just as John F Kennedy finally adopted the cause of the civil rights movement, the gay rights lobby can now claim that the White House is officially on side (even if it suspects Mr Obama had been so privately for a long time).

Legislative change is what finally frees a victimised group from state-sanctioned discrimination. But laws tend only to be altered once a significant bulk of the population accepts, tolerates and even celebrates a community's differences."