JOHN Blunt (LET, February 2) is wrong in asserting that the vast majority of people support Section 28.

An NOP poll, commissioned by the Channel 4 political programme, Powerhouse, showed that the public support a change in this law by 54 to 44 per cent. Among parents, opposition to Section 28 is even higher, with 61 per cent thinking it should go.

The Section is, in any case, a badly-drafted legal nonsense which would probably be laughed out of court if any attempt was made to enforce it. It purports to prevent local authorities from teaching, in any maintained school, the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretend family relationship.

Although local authorities decided what was taught in schools when the law was passed, that responsibility is now divided between the national curriculum and the school governors, and Section 28 affects neither.

Section 28 is nothing more than a legal folly, though one which is indirectly harmful to both lesbians and gays. It is offensive to liberal opinion generally and only serves to give unwarranted government support to the hatred which one minority (the moral right) feels for another.

May it soon be consigned to the history books, followed closely, I hope, by John Blunt.

ALLAN HORSEFALL, president, Campaign for Homosexual Equality, PO Box 342, London.

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