LGBT Noise had its first street happening yesterday with a carol singing petition-signing leafleting of the good shoppers of South King Street in support of gay marriage. It was good-humoured and Gloria sang beautifully. The organizers were a delight to meet – primarily because this veteran of LGBT politics is chuffed to see a new generation emerge who are bright, articulate, confident, politically engaged and passionate about change. And a damn fine looking bunch they are too. I’ve put up a few photos of the event here.

I had an interesting couple of conversations. One, with passer-by Ann Louise Gilligan, who explained to me how, in Ireland, the judiciary takes a dim view of people who take action in the courts relating to a particular piece of legislation, and who simultaneously campaign to change the same legislation. It was lovely to meet her of course, and it was indeed a happy coincidence she and Katherine Zappone happened to be in town doing their Christmas shopping at the same time as the demonstration.

The other is, on the face of it, a more vexed one. It’s the issue of publishing photographs on the internet of children. A couple of very good-natured young lads, brothers, were larking about while the choir was singing – and were showing off in front of the camera. I obliged by taking a couple of shots – and then got chatting with the woman beside me about where the pictures were going to be published. In one sense it’s a public space, the photographs are utterly innocent and fun. If it was a St Patrick’s Day parade – I’d have not thought twice about publishing them. But because the issue is gay-related there’s a curious twinge of wrongness about it – which, in the end, I think is our own homophobia. After all, the whole point of gay marriage is that it is the ultimate demonstration of equality. And the point of the demonstration was not lost on the lads themselves, the older brother knew exactly what we were there for, and cheerfully told us that they had a gay cousin. When being gay is as ordinary as that for the kids of today, then in some ways the argument for equality has been won already.