From: REEKIE Alan Fraser <aree@dg13.cec.be>
Date: Tue, 24 May 94 08:26:00 MST


Thought you might like to know this - Alan (aree@dg13.cec.be, usual 
disclaimer):

"Mandrake", Sunday Telegraph, London, 22/05/94:

Meanwhile, there is great excitement amoung homosexual campaigners
over an historic announcement that slipped almost unnoticed last week
past the lips of the Lord Chancellor. Lord Mackay of Clashfern said in
answer to a Parliamentary question from Lord Cochrane of Cults (a place
in Scotland, like Clashfern, not a function- AR) that henceforth 
homosexuality
would be no bar to becoming a judge.
The new policy reverses that announced by the former Lord Chancellor,
Lord Hailsham, who said in 1985 that homosexuals should not be
appointed as judges since they were "particularly vulnerable to public
and private pressure". Since then, two judges have been forced to
resign after it became known that they were homosexual.

Mr Mark Henderson, of the Bar Lesbian and Gay group,
believes that Lord Mackay's announcement may encourage existing
homosexual judges to declare themselves - though I must say I find the
idea improbable.
"It is quite possible that some of the gay judges will choose to come
out", he tells me. "There are quite a few of them. The Bar certainly
attracts its fair share of gay people, and the Bench is very
attractive to them."