Coronation Street actors join anti-homophobic bullying campaign

Coronation Street actors Brooke Vincent, Sacha Parkinson and Anthony Cotton are lending there support against homophobic bullying.

Coronation Street actors Brooke Vincent, Sacha Parkinson and Anthony Cotton are lending there support against homophobic bullying. Brooke Vincent and Sacha Parkinson play Coronation Street’s first Lesbian characters Sophie Webster and Sian Powers while Anthony Cotton plays gay barman Sean Tully. All three actors are lending their support to Anti-Bullying Week. The three actors are supporting Exceeding Expectations which is a multi-agency partnership in Manchester working together to challenge the issue of homophobic bullying.

“Sacha and I really enjoy playing gay characters. Playing Sophie has made me realise that it’s not easy to say look I’m gay, deal with it – because it’s not. Different people have different stories, some people have a terrible time, and some people just breeze through.” – Brooke Vincent

Stonewall, the gay rights lobby group, has supported several campaigns targeted at homophobic bullying in recent years – the ‘Some People Are Gay – Get Over It’ being once such high profile campaign.

More recently in America a campaign called ‘It Gets Better’ has been launched following a spate of suicides believed to be the result of homophobic bullying. Up to ten teenagers in America are thought to have committed suicide in recent months because they were gay or thought to be gay by peers and subjected to abuse. Several high profile names leant their support to the It Gets Better campaign by posting video messages on You Tube with Adam Lambert and American president Barack Obama both supporting the campaign.

In a recent poll on ATV Today to find the ‘Best Current Gay Storyline’ in the UK soaps Sophie Webster and Sian Powers came second with an incredible 612,593 votes! They were beaten however by EastEnders couple Christian Clarke (John Partridge) and Syed (Marc Elliot) who had 856,439 votes. In all 1,484,873 votes were cast in the poll that ran in September for one week.