announcer: six o'clock news from the bbc with sue lawleyl and nicholas witchell. inaudible.use of lords, a vote is taking place now on a challenge to the... shouting. stop section 28! we're protesting about rights for lesbian and gay people. in general, britain was quite a hostile environment in the 19805 for the lgbt community. about 75% of people when surveyed said that it was mostly or always wrong to be gay. simply by walking down the street, if somebody identified you as lesbian or gay, you could get abuse and you could be violently attacked just for being. there was a sort of catalyst moment where a book was published about a girl who lived with her two dads, and it kicked off a moral panic in parliament. section 28 banned local authorities from promoting homosexuality. the second part of it banned the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality in schools. basically it meant the closing down of services. so young people became very vulnerable particularly, and schools couldn't protect people from being bullied. all kinds of groups all over the country began to prot