reply to post by Domo1
Hi there
You ask - is this harmless or is it going too far?
My answer is, it's harmless. Questions like this will be on a separate monitoring form, which will be detached from any personal info, so that if you
respond to questions about your sexual orientation, for example, this will be anonymised and used statistically only. It won't be stored with your
name, address etc And the main reason why it's harmless is, because you are in no way obliged to complete it.
People who complain about this kind of monitoring usually aren't really bothered about privacy, because if they were, then the answer is, don't fill
it in.
They are usually white, male, heterosexual, socially illiberal men - who would prefer it if gay men, lesbians, transgender people remained invisible.
As a gay man myself, I pay income tax (federal tax) and national insurance on my salary. I also pay council tax (local tax) and VAT (sales tax) on
some items. My local tax goes towards local libraries, amongst other things, as well as schools, rubbish collection, local amenities etc. I don't
mind that some of my tax goes towards, say, local youth services, youth clubs, schools etc even though I don't have kids and probably never will.
In return I don't see why my local library shouldn't contain 1%, 2% or whatever 'gay themed' materials - no, not porn or erotica, gay history or
politics or literature maybe; it provides a service for all taxpayers, including me. And in order to justify that, no doubt to people who find that
offensive because they are socially illiberal, the library service needs to show that it has some gay users. Hence the need for these forms.