The British Broadcasting Corporation is well aware that the term "homosexual" can cause offence. Even as long ago as 1996 Producers' guidelines were advising that "gay" and "lesbian" should be used in preference.

"Homosexual" is, however, the word of choice for those who do not believe in equal rights. Google phrases such as "homosexual rights" and "homosexual marriage" and you'll see that most of the results yield web pages with anti-gay sentiments.

So, bearing this in mind, why we are still hearing the word on the BBC news channel? It was repeatedly used during yesterday's BBC news reports about the ECHR rulings. And, more to the point, why was the word used by the BBC's gay employees?



BBC news on Tuesday 15/1/2013 at 11am
The Corporation is reputed to employ proportionately more gay people than in the general population. I'm not sure it is true, but that was the stated belief of BBC journalist Andrew Marr in "From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel" - Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century.

In my view that would also explain the BBC's decision to emphasise the single Christian victory in the European Court of Human Rights, and play down the losses by the two Christians who believed they had a (presumably God-given) right to discriminate against anyone who doesn't think and behave in exactly the same way as themselves.

It is interesting to check out BBC news from July 2008, when a vast amount of airtime was devoted to reporting "devout Christian" Ms Lillian Ladele's victory in her industrial tribunal. Here is just one such report.

Newsround's coverage at 4.20pm and at 6.50pm completely avoided mentioning tho two cases relating to anti-gay discrimination, as did Newsround's web write-up. One could easily be forgiven for suspecting the BBC, and most especially its Children's Department, does not respect all people equally.