Reprinted from the Belfast Telegraph – 27 APRIL 2015

There has been a tit-for-tat spat of letters over the last few months on the (mis)interpretation of the percentage of people identifying as LGBT.
The original complainant, Stella Wilson, started the debate (Writeback, January 28) by asking: “Why there is a campaign to continually push [gay] rights above everyone else’s” – given they “only” account for 1.6% of the population (a figure she reiterated in Writeback, April 23)?
Regardless of continuing squabbles over the figure, equality is not a numbers game. At the last census (2011), the Northern Irish population included only 0.2% black people, 0.6% nonagenarians (90-year-olds) and 7.3% long-term sick or disabled.
Racism, ageism or discrimination against the less able-bodied cannot be justified because they are minorities – and the same is true of the LGBT community.
Stella Wilson’s most-recent claim that “quite a large percentage [of 16-24-year-olds who believe they are gay] eventually realise they are not” is entirely unsubstantiated.
The gay rights campaign would vanish and Stella Wilson would never have to hear any more about it if only there was true equality in society.
DISCRIMINATED AGAINST (AGAIN)
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