IT is a pity that Miss Mary Casstles should choose this particular time to condemn Tony Blair for trying to abolish 'Clause 28' (BEN, December 5).

We must presume that is what she meant, even though she refers to him being 'obsessed with getting Clause 28 through'.

Just before 10-year-old Damilola Taylor was murdered last week as he walked home from his after-school computer club, he had been bullied at school and branded as 'gay'.

This term has now become a general term of abuse in schools, for any boy who is particularly studious or who doesn't excel in sport.

We do not know - yet - whether the fact that he was so branded has anything to do with his death.

What we do know is, that if it had not been for the infamous 'Clause 28' (actually Section 28 of the Local Government Act), the lad's teachers might have felt able to address this kind of homophobic bullying and put a stop to it.

Allan Horsfall

President

Campaign for

Homosexual Equality

PO Box 342

London, WC1X 0DU