Sir Ian McKellen tours schools to tell children being gay is OK

Daily Mail 23rd September 2008

It's OK to be gay: Sir Ian McKellan, who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings, has visited schools to talk to pupils

Actor Sir Ian McKellen has revealed he is to tour Britain's schools preaching about gay tolerance.

The openly gay star, who is best known to youngsters as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings blockbusters, wants to encourage other homosexual men to go back to their former schools and lecture pupils on homophobia.

Revealing his campaign in gay magazine Attitude, Sir Ian said: 'I’ve been busy at quite a few schools recently. I went to a wonderful co-ed faith school in Harpenden.

'They were Christians and absolutely determined that their pupils did not discriminate.
They invited me to come and give prizes to 13-year-olds in front of the parents and to talk, partly, about being gay.

'I said that we are all part of a minority group – be it for being short, or tall or fat or thin, or having red hair or whatever. I said hands up who thinks they are part of a minority group and all the hands went up.

The actor, 69, went on: 'I had Gandalf’s sword with me and I knighted a pair of children Sir Minority and Dame Minority and it went down very well.

'It is essential  to talk to 12 and 13-year-olds because they absorb what’s thrown at them, whether it be homophobia or tolerance - and we have to make sure it’s positive stuff.'

Sir Ian added: 'But there are 30,000 schools. I think this campaign is right – any openly gay person should consider whether they have a duty of contacting their old school and saying, "You may not know, but I am gay and I was when I was at school and what is your policy with regard to homophobic bullying?".

'One school invited me down, as two pupils had come out and the headmaster didn’t know what to do about it. I said, "How many students here are gay?" and he said, "Just these two." Clearly not. "How many gay members of staff have you got?"

'He had no idea. And this was a concerned man. There is a need to make it clear that there are gay kids in school.'

Sir Ian says he has met Gordon Brown at No 10 to talk about the subject  and met Tory leader David Cameron, adding: 'Only once, backstage at Parkinson. I told him I was very worried about faith schools.

'The Tory party has clearly had a big change of heart at the top but as Labour MEP Michael Cashman will tell you, the Conservative MEPs do not vote the right way on equality issues.'

He went on: 'That’s worrying. But on the face of it, all the parties are now behind equality. The party of Section 28 (which forbade gay lessons in schools) doesn’t seem to exist at the moment.'

Sir Ian publicly came out as gay on the BBC Radio 4 program, in 1998 while discussing Margaret Thatcher's 'section 28' legislation which would make public promotion of homosexuality a crime. It was reason enough for McKellen to take a stand, and he has been active in the gay rights movement ever since.

Two years after coming out, he was knighted.