Life of Liam

Note from Liam: an edited version of this post has been included on The Glasgow Guardian's (University of Glasgow student newspaper) website as part of their LGBT History Month 2018 coverage. You can see that post here . 2017 marks 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in the United Kingdom (which applied only to England and Wales). Scotland would not legalise homosexuality for another 14 years until 1981. Photo Credit - DrRandomFactor (Wikimedia Commons) 50 years. It really is not a long time at all. 50 years is within my parents' generation, which means that those older than 50 were alive in a time where homosexuals could be legally reprimanded for being themselves. For Scotland, it is only 36 years which is even less time and may include some people of my generation. Although a lot of change and progress has occurred in the past 50 years, I think it would be ludicrous to try and ignore the fact that homophobia still exists in some form in Scotland and need...

This is a topic which has been plaguing my mind for the past few months due to a number of events happening around the world and it is one which I have no clear or satisfactory answer to. I am growing up as part of the millennial generation, who is often the butt of people's jokes and criticism, and something we have become known for is our extreme political correctness and ease of being offended. In our eyes, however, we are just humans who believe in equality for all and will do our best to tackle injustice wherever we see it. The line between free speech and hate speech initially seems quite obvious. As soon as it comes to discriminating against someone then it is hate speech, right? However, the more I think about it, the more arbitrary it becomes and the more I notice that people can often shift the line depending on the argument at hand. Those who are often criticised for their controversial and offensive views use free speech as a way to argue that it is essential in order...