Two teenage actresses who play a lesbian couple on ITV’s Coronation Street say “we’re really starting to become our characters” and kissing each other on screen is “like second nature”.
The storyline has encouraged people to call themselves homosexual, the actresses boast.
And one of the actresses, Sacha Parkinson, says she wants the legal definition of marriage to change to allow same-sex marriage.
Marriage
Miss Parkinson and Brooke Vincent were speaking to women’s magazine Heat about their lesbian storyline.
Miss Vincent is quoted as saying she is “the nation’s favourite lesbian” while Miss Parkinson also declares the title of a ‘civil partnership’ “well boring”, compared to marriage.
Both actresses are heterosexual but Miss Vincent says they get “so protective” about the on screen kissing: “If someone says we shouldn’t be able to kiss because it’s on at that time of night, we’re like, ‘OK, so Tina and Graeme can’t kiss, either?’ You feel a part of it.”
Miss Parkinson comments: “We just come as a pair now. We tell each other we love each other all the time. I think we’re really starting to become our characters.”
Civil partnership
In response to a question on where the soap relationship will “go from here”, and a suggestion of a civil partnership, Miss Parkinson asks, “why is it called a civil partnership and not just getting married? It sounds well boring.”
The interviewer suggests the actresses should “table a motion” in Parliament on homosexual marriage.
“I’m not being funny, but I would. It’s really annoying, isn’t it?”, Miss Parkinson says.
Ridiculous
In the interview Miss Parkinson also says: “When other soaps have experimented with lesbian characters, it’s always ended up as just being a phase, which is why Coronation Street wanted to go all out and make it a proper love story.”
Such language echoes that of homosexual activists who are keen to downplay stories of people leaving the homosexual lifestyle.
Last month Miss Parkinson branded complaints from parents about the Corrie storyline as “ridiculous”.
She told G3 magazine: “Even if children were watching, they need to know about this stuff.”
Lesbian
Miss Vincent’s character, Sophie, began following Christianity in 2009 and embarked upon a lesbian relationship in 2010.
Last year Miss Vincent spoke about her part during a TV interview. She was asked on ITV1′s This Morning programme whether the lesbian relationship of her character was “a phase she’s going through”.
But Miss Vincent said it was not a phase. She commented: “In the story conference and everything, they wanted to make out that it wasn’t a phase because it’s not a phase to most people”.
Phase
The actress continued: “We wanted to play it really real and just normal.” She said: “You have a stereotype of what a lesbian is and it’s not always like that.”
In a publication by Stonewall, a homosexual lobby group, a Stonewall Youth Volunteer is quoted talking about what teachers should do if a pupil tells them they are gay, lesbian or bisexual.
“The teacher definitely shouldn’t say this could just be a phase”, the document says.
Platform
At the beginning of this year a homosexual producer on Coronation Street said he uses the show as a platform for pushing homosexual issues.
Phil Collinson told The Sun it is “an amazing platform” that really makes “a difference to the way people think”.