Unlikely players can appear, paradoxically, to join forces in an open season on lesbian and gay people. Fundamentalist networks, particularly from the Christian right, twist the facts in their press releases as they try to block attempts to gain mainstream support for equality and diversity agendas. The gay media all too readily fall into the trap set for them by the likes of the Christian Institute, or Christian Concern for Our Nation, giving wider publicity – and hence credibility – to what are often non-stories. LGBT people of faith can be portrayed by religious conservatives and gay media alike as a Trojan horse undermining either "the fabric of society" or LGBT community solidarity.

The Christian Institute's campaign against Tesco's sponsorship of Pride London and World Pride is a prime example of this. A quick glance at the facts shows that this is no big story. Tesco sponsored a family-friendly space at Pride London's community event in July 2011 and by all accounts they are going to do the same for World Pride, which London hosts in July 2012. Tesco has rejected the CI's claims.

Clearly, private comments by Tesco's head of research and development, Nick Lansley – that he would campaign "against evil Christians (that's not all Christians, just bad ones)", who oppose equal marriage rights – upset the Christian Institute and their homophobic/transphobic friends. One of their Catholic supporters was furious that Tesco was sponsoring "a clearly political and highly controversial event". Such comments suggest that opponents of Pride have little grasp of what LGBT Pride is all about.

Many LGBT activists believe that the Pride events of recent years have not been political enough. The presence of some out politicians, gay-friendly wives of party leaders on the speakers' platform, and opportunistic mayoral candidates hardly makes for a political revolution. Bringing together activists from political, human rights, LGBT and trade unions sectors, as well as people of faith and other progressive groups, the Cutting Edge Consortium welcomes the World Pride 2012 organisers' intention to address clearly and unequivocally the global failure to protect LGBT rights as human rights – not least throughout the Commonwealth.

Since fundamentalists mount homophobically inspired boycotts at the drop of a hat, so the LGBT media should respond smartly. Let us see a boycott in lesbian and gay websites and magazines of all news stories emanating from the likes of the Christian Institute, Christian Concern for Our Nation, and Catholic Voices. We can do without what one gay Catholic theologian has termed "ecclesiastical pornography". Let the LGBT media begin to publish some good news from within communities of faith: that the vast majority of believers support equal legal rights for LGBT people; that a Catholic archbishop can publicly recognise the value of civil partnerships in building up the common good; that churches, Anglican and Catholic, in and around Soho, welcome, without reserve, the presence and contribution of LGBT people, and engage in solidarity with other individuals and groups through the Soho LGBT community forum.

A more worthwhile Tesco campaign might be to ensure that the company holds to its commitment to equality and diversity, as well as to pay its low-paid workers the Living Wage, in London and beyond. This is the kind of justice and human rights for which we could all work. It is echoed in a biblical phrase, which any of us, people of faith or not, could own: act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. If the self-proclaimed "righteous" in our midst would do that, then they might find that their God was leading them up quite a different path.