Seeing as this is Attitude’s Awards issue, let me award my very own Lifetime Achievement Award for service to Gays. And the winner is…. Cue drumroll…. Peter Tatchell. That surprised you, didn’t it?

I have a tremendous admiration for Peter and all that he has achieved since he first came to prominence when he was Labour candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey By-election. His politics are about as far from mine as you can get, but I think it is true to say that without his zestful campaigning and unwillingness to take no for an answer, the cause of gay equality wouldn’t have got as far as it has. I’ve disagreed with aspects of his campaigning tactics, but there’s no doubt that he has been effective not just in raising the profile of issues of gay equality, he has done a lot for human rights more generally. You can sense the ‘but’ coming, can’t you?

Unfortunately I think Peter is in danger of believing that the tactics he used in the 1980s are just as appropriate nowadays. He is in danger of living in a timewarp, where the only way of achieving a reform is to shout about it, demonstrate and basically cause an almighty stink. He decries the fact that the LCBGT community is now seen as “respectable”. He alleges that we’ve “also witnessed a retreat from radical idealism to cautious conformism.” No, Peter, what we’ve witnessed is a growing realism by LBGT campaigners that the tactics of demonstration and resistance, which once might have worked, no longer do, and that equality campaigning needs to take on a more subtle tone.

He laments the fact that “there has been a massive retreat from the ideals and vision of the early LGBT liberation pioneers. “ He says that “most LGBT people no longer question the values, laws and institutions of mainstream society. They are content to settle for equal rights within the status quo – despite its many flaws and failings.”

I’d put it very differently. The early campaigners for sexual liberation delighted in splitting themselves off from mainstream society. But what they ignored or didn’t realise is that most gay men and women actually see themselves as little different from their straight counterparts, apart from the obvious. We go to the same shops, cinemas and restaurants. We drive the same cars, live in the same places, wear the same clothes. 98% of us don’t conform to the stereotype. Put us in an identity parade and you’d never tell us apart. But that’s not what Peter Tatchell wants to hear. We should wear our sexuality on our sleave. Or preferably on our foreheads.

In the end, I suppose it comes down to this. Are you a man who happens to be gay, or a gay who happens to be a man? I suspect that 98% of us would allocate ourselves to the first category. I am defined by who I am. Being gay is part of who I am but it isn’t the defining factor. And nor should it be. Fundamentalist gays will no doubt accuse me of letting the side down, or worse, but I couldn’t give a monkey’s arse.

So when Peter Tatchell writes that “the first Gay Pride marchers saw the family as “a patriarchal prison that enslaves women, gays and children,” I almost want to retch. He says that “four decades later, the focus on safe, cuddly issues like civil partnerships and marriage indicates how LGBT people are increasingly reluctant to rock the boat and are more than happy to embrace traditional heterosexual aspirations.”

It’s got nothing to do with ‘rocking the boat’, it’s all to do with equality and believing in the institution of family. This has little to do with sexual politics, more to do with exteme left wing views about family politics.

In Peter’s view, “the LGBT movement has finally succumbed to the mainstream politics of conformism, respectability and moderation.” Or to put it another way, the LGBT movement has matured into adulthood.

That doesn’t mean I don’t recognise Peter’s brilliant campaigning work or seek to diminish it. Quite the reverse. All I am saying is that present day campaigning isn’t all about shouting and wearing T shirts with offensive slogans. It’s got to be cleverer than that.

This article first appeared in Attitude Magazine