he insists that his sovereign have the right to rule on religious truth, because to
allow a church to do that might again set up challenges to authority. Although
it can make dreary reading, the development of his argument is subtle and
powerful, and Hobbesian ideas permeate many thinkers who would not accept
the label. His intellectual commitment was to produce a true ‘science’ of
politics, and he was particularly influenced by the developing mathematical
sciences of his day, trying to produce a social science with the same logical
certainty. There are still many puzzles about what Hobbes really meant, despite
the thousands of studies written on him, and his own beliefs about religion,
and the extent to which he felt men could be moral in the right circumstances,
are deeply unclear. The toughness of his arguments and their often unpalatable
conclusions denied him political favour in his own days, but his theories are
still debated, and often seen to be relevant, especially in the study of interna-
tional relations.
Homosexuality
Since the 1960s, when moral codes were relaxing everywhere in the West in
favour of the ‘permissive’ society, the political implications of homosexuality
have become increasingly prominent. The word ‘gay’ is often used when
discussing homosexuality in a political context, and can refer to either male or
female homosexuality, although it is frequently restricted to the former.
Discrimination against homosexuals, and encroachment on their civil
rightsby a heterosexual majority, much of which regards their own sexuality
as ‘normal’, are perhaps the major concerns of this element of the population,
usually estimated as not less than 10%, and possibly much more. Politically the
gay movement has perhaps now reached maturity, with the continuing crisis of
AIDS, ensuring its progress. Not only has almost every Western jurisdiction
removed any legal ban on homosexualityper se, but there has been remarkable
progress in ending legal discrimination against gays.
The real problems facing a successful gay political movement are of two
quite different types. Practically, it is still a brave politician, certainly as far as the
United Kingdom and USA are concerned, who will admit to being homo-
sexual if their political base is on the right. Until recently such an admission
would lead rapidly to the end of a political career. This is not the same as saying
that it is not known that significant proportions of major legislative assemblies
are homosexual. However, this reticence makes it very hard for the gay
movement to be politically effective by lobbying orthodox politicians. The
other problem is that of the political character of homosexuality itself. Clearly
there is a powerful civil rights argument to be made in favour of equal
treatment before the law and even ofaffirmative actionto redress past
discrimination, but there seem to be no issues which are specifically gay-issues
Homosexuality