I’m sat in the bar of a Bristol hotel waiting for Stuart Milk. We were hoping for a little bit of downtime for him today. However, the Democratic primary race is in full swing back in the USA and as someone who campaigned strongly for Obama Stuart’s opinion is in demand. Stuff is happening in Asia too. I have no idea if Stuart is involved in Panasonic’s decision to back same-sex unions in Japan — he doesn’t share details of his work with me because it is often sensitive — but it would not surprise me. It is the sort of thing he helps make happen.

What I did do is get Stuart into my radio studio for almost 2 hours on Wednesday. That was yesterday, wasn’t it? I have trouble remembering what day it is at the moment. He was a bit late arriving as I had to leave him answering emails and make his own way to the studio while I got the show set up. We were joined by my producer, Paulette, who is a retired teacher, and by Lisa Middle who runs the local branch of the National Union of Teachers. The first half of the show was taken up with discussion of oppressive initiatives such as Proposition 6 in California (which Harvey Milk helped defeat) and Section 28 in the UK, both of which were intended to prevent children finding out the truth about same sex relationships. We also talked about what sort of government initiatives we needed to build a fairer society.

You can listen to the first half of the show here.

The second half of the show was given over to talking about Stuart, his uncle, and the great work that he and the Milk Foundation do around the world. We also talked about some of the people Stuart had met in his work, such a the Obamas, and Maya Angelou.

You can listen to the second half of the show here.

The playlist was all LGBT:

• Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out
• Little Richard – Tutti Frutti
• Janelle Monae & Erykah Badu – QUEEN
• Amada Lear – I Am What I Am
• Labi Siffre – So Strong
• Vinyl Closet – Jailhouse Rock
• Tracy Chapman – Baby Can I Hold You Tonight?
• Village People – YMCA