The opinions expressed by John Blunt are not necessarily those of this newspaper

HOW it is that homosexuals, or anyone else for that matter, can manage to have 'discreet' sex in a public place is something that only those with the most fevered imagination could deem possible.

But the leading contenders for job of Mayor of London obviously consider that it can be done - though there are well-known areas of London where decent people no longer go because the activities taking place there between gays are so blatant and common that the only discretion being exercised is on the part of those deciding to stay well away.

They do not want to see what is taking place and, above all, they do not want their children to.

Yet we find the Labour and Tory runners in London, Frank Dobson and Steven Norris, actively and openly encouraging this - and rebel Ken Livingstone is no different - and calling for the police to turn a blind eye to it. (They already are).

Why?

Forget all the pious claptrap about gay rights.

This is nothing more than a nakedly opportunistic bid for the so-called pink vote, with London having an estimated 600,000 gay men and women of voting age.

But, hey, what if politicians were advocating that heterosexual men and women should be unmolested by the law while having sex in the park bushes or public toilets? Would not the majority of sane, decent and ordinary people think that they were speaking up in favour of obscenity and an outrage to public morals?

Of course, they would.

So what's the difference when it comes to condoning gay sex in public places - encouraged as it also is, we hear, by health authorities spending the cash-strapped NHS's money on free condoms for gays that are left in bird boxes and fixed to trees and fences in country beauty spots frequented by homosexuals looking for sex with strangers?

It is, of course, politically incorrect to disapprove - you stand to be condemned as homophobic.

Or, if you raise such matters in places like Blackburn with Darwen's council chamber, you may be called a bigot or a fascist or associated with the Nazis and their concentration camps by Labour councillors - though both Jewish and Muslim religious leaders, who know far more about bigotry and death camps than Blackburn's gay-friendly councillors, happen to firmly oppose homosexual licence (I wonder what Blackburn's devout Muslim voters think of their being tarred as bigots by their Labour representatives).

But when will these P.C. sorts learn that disapproval of gay sex in public, or Labour's determination to allow gay sex to be promoted in schools, does not automatically amount to anti-homosexual bigotry, but simply to opposition to obscenity - which is what it is and what the law says it is too?

What is obscene is these values and decency being derided by politicians in their shameless lust for votes.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.