In June 1987 Britain had a General Election that resulted in the election (for the third time) of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government.

Four months later, in a speech to the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Blackpool, Margaret Thatcher – obviously buoyed by her re-election – spelled out her agenda for the coming years.

When she talked about her plans for Education she listed the faults of the current system, including:

“Children who need to be taught traditional moral values are being taught they have an inalienable right to be gay.”

She went on to add that:

“…children are being cheated of a sound start in life—yes cheated.”

So much for the rights and needs of queer kids.

But Thatcher’s speech wasn’t simply a one-off note of concern: it was a resurrection of a plan that had been in the making for some time before that. More to the point, it was a more open and confident commitment to that plan, now that the General Election was safely won.

That plan, of course, ultimately manifested itself in 1988 as Section 28 of the Local Government Act. But its earlier manifestation was a proposed amendment to the Local Government Bill by Tory peer the Earl of Halsbury in 1987. This amendment was the first attempt to “restrain local authorities from promoting homosexuality.”

But the Government – possibly wary of a negative electoral response to such a proposal – was far more cagey about the measure in 1987.  One government minister even went so far as to point out how difficult it was to define ‘the promotion of homosexuality’.

As events went on to show, however, the Government’s reservations were short-lived. On October 9th, 1987, four months after re-election, Margaret Thatcher derided the notion of an inalienable right to be gay. Two months after that, on December 8th, a new clause ‘prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality’ was inserted into the Local Government Bill and the following year was passed into law.