A day to be proud of — a balance between celebration and fighting the cause.

The Tom Dick and Sally team recently spent the day at London Pride spreading the message about the open and honest nature of our dating site. The response was heartening; a huge number have signed up. You may have spotted us in the rather figure-hugging t-shirts!

Dominic, our founder, tells us that the consistently positive response from the Pride crowd provided tremendous affirmation that there is a real need for a LGBT site focussed on long term relationships.

Despite Dominic going for a size too small, our Tom Dick and Sally t-shirts went down really well so we decided we should give one away!

Win a Tom Dick and Sally t-shirt!

Simply let us know why you would want a Tom Dick and Sally t-shirt and the most entertaining answer as judged by us…gets it! E-mail your answer to dominic@tomdickandsally.com before 31st August 2009.

On a more serious note, 40 years on from the Stonewall rebellion, Britain's gay community appears to have at last faced up to the debate over whether Pride London should be celebration or protest.

Last year, as thousands joined in the party which was Pride, many were frustrated that complacency appeared to have replaced the traditional emphasis on highlighting and fighting for equal rights. Indeed, it was difficult to find any reference to a political struggle within any of the publicity on the Pride London’s website.

Peter Tatchell, of the lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) human rights group, OutRage, and a patron of Pride London, condemned last year's slogan "Come and Play" as "totally anodyne" and accused the LGBT community of "huge apathy”.

He said: "I'm shocked that Pride London has hardly mentioned the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots on its website or in its magazine. Most of the content is about entertainment and partying. To ignore and downplay this important anniversary is an insult to the veterans who began our momentous fight for freedom."

This was (and still is) within a context of police statistics showing a rise in homophobic hate crimes and a recent report from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers showing the term gay is still the most frequently used insult in schools. The LGBT community seemed to be acting as if this were not the case and that everything was rosy in the garden. This might be the case in pockets of major cities like London. However, LGBT refugees are persistently sent back to face persecution in violently homophobic countries like Uganda and Nigeria and the police resist prosecuting reggae singers who openly advocate the murder of LGBT people.

The time is ripe for redressing the balance between partying and protesting. My experience of Pride this year was in this respect a positive one. The tone was set on the website for Pride London which unequivocally stated: “Pride London aims to promote equality and diversity through all of its campaigns.” It goes on to connect the event with the Stonewall Riots of 40 years ago.

Joseph Galliano, the former editor of GT magazine (formerly Gay Times), sums my feelings up well: "I don't want to be po-faced about it but that celebration is standing on the shoulders of people who made great sacrifices and they should be remembered."

One aspect of the day that will stay with us is the occasion when we struck up a conversation with a straight married couple who were fascinated by (and set on completing) the Trueself personality test mentioned on the fliers. There were many interactions like this which resulted in the open and inclusive nature of our site being emphasised. This is our aim; to create a community that is truly integrated and therefore something to be proud of - not marginalised. We hope we are contributing (in the same way the London Pride event did) to the LGBT community feeling good about themselves.

If you were there, we hope you were able to celebrate at the same time as keeping some sense of the battle that still lies ahead for many of us.