Ruth Hunt has pledged to do more to win over "hearts and minds".

Announcing her priorities, Ms Hunt said she wanted to build on recent successes - including legal same-sex marriage - by helping change social attitudes.

"There has been a natural priority on powerful institutions, but now we have achieved full legal equality," she said.

"We now need to ensure society reflects the changes in our law.

"That means going right into our communities and seeing what matters in the lives of gay people across the country."

In previous work with Stonewall, Ms Hunt has been heavily involved in campaigns to secure marriage equality, give lesbians access to fertility treatment and end homophobic bullying in schools.

Last year, she criticised the Catholic Church for banning a London church from performing gay masses.

She called the ban a "real shame" for the safety of gay Catholics, but has frequently advocated better relationships with faith leaders.

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After St Mary's Primary Catholic School in Wimbledon, south London, confirmed inviting Stonewall to help staff address issues concerning homophobia and discrimination, the group said it had gone into "half a dozen" Catholic schools.

Stonewall, a registered charity, is highly critical of the Catholic Church's teachings on homosexuality.

The school inspectorate Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills) requires all schools to show evidence that staff are trained in how to tackle homophobic bullying.

The head teacher at St Mary's, Sarah Crouch, said she called the campaign group into the school to train staff "on how to tackle homophobic language and bullying".

She said: "As a school, and as Catholics, we are opposed to prejudice of any kind and felt it was important to tackle the issue of homophobic language and bullying.

"The training was very successful and we feel confident that if any incidents of this kind of language occurs our staff have the means to address it appropriately."

The decision to allow Stonewall into Catholic schools shocked some family campaigners.

Antonia Tully, national co-ordinator of the Safe at School campaign, said the presence of gay activists in primary schools would alarm parents.

She said: "Many parents will be very concerned that a gay rights organisation is considered to be an appropriate source of advice on how to deal with children using inappropriate language in the playground.

"If a primary school takes on Stonewall's agenda, young children will be exposed to issues which they are too young to understand properly."

Stonewall's head of education, Wes Streeting, said about half a dozen Catholic schools including St Mary's had been given the accolade of "Stonewall School Champion" and others had received Stonewall's resources through local authorities.

The resources included a "best practice" guide, with case studies describing how some schools put up Stonewall posters carrying the slogan "Different Families, Same Love", with cartoons of same-sex parents.

Sources:

Catholic Herald

The Tablet

Image: Wikimedia

Stonewall, a charity which claims 10,000 members, made the award at an annual ceremony in London in reaction to the cardinal's stance against the Scottish government's intention to legalise same-sex marriage.

In a newspaper article, Cardinal O'Brien said the proposed law represented a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right". He said same-sex partnerships were "harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of those involved".

John Deighan, the Catholic Church's parliamentary officer for Scotland, said the award to Cardinal O'Brien was an "outrage" that showed a lack of judgement. "Stonewall wants to shut down anyone who doesn't agree with them in the public discourse," he said.

The Catholic Church in Scotland called for the withdrawal of public funding for Stonewall.

While the Scottish government said it would not cut funding for the group, First Minister Alex Salmond said it was wrong to call the cardinal a bigot. "Personal insults are not conducive to a proper and dignified debate on the important issue of equality in Scotland," he said.

Two major banks that support Stonewall's awards ceremony, Barclays and Coutts, have said they will discontinue their funding if the Bigot of the Year category is not dropped.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, who is gay, won the award of Politician of the Year, but was booed for criticising the bigot award.

"The case for equality is far better made by demonstrating the sort of generosity, tolerance and love we would wish to see more of in this world," she said.

Sources:

BBC

The Guardian

Image: DICI