NOTTINGHAM'S gay and lesbian community have reasons to be cheerful ahead of today's Pride march, according to a prominent equal rights campaigner.
Peter Tatchell said the Equal Marriage Act was a huge step in the right direction for equal rights.
But he said there was still a way to go for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people to achieve full equality – and events like Notts Pride played their part in making a claim for this.
Mr Tatchell, who has been involved in gay rights campaigns since the late 1960s, said the city should be proud of Pride.
Addressing Nottingham City Council's LGBT Network, at Loxley House, he said: "I think it's great that Nottingham diverse communities celebrate their particular unique contribution to the city's life and culture.
"LGBT people make a huge contribution to enrich the cultural life of Nottingham. Pride is partly a celebration and partly a claim for equality of human rights.
"Although we have made massive advances, there are still areas of discrimination: all the equality laws have qualified exemptions for faith organisations, LGBT asylum seekers often get a rough deal from the Home Office and sex education for LGBT kids is very poor."
Mr Tatchell said people should take heart from the change of laws that allowed gay marriage to take place and admitted he did not expect the change to take place so quickly.
He said: "The same-sex marriage act is a huge positive advance but it's not quite full equality. It still embodies areas of discrimination, including inequalities in pension inheritance and the ongoing ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships.
"I didn't expect it would be this quick. There was so much opposition by Government and other political parties even as recent as three years ago."
