I PAY US A LIVING WAGE MUN RIGHIS LAMrAN Stop ignoring the issue!
Class Fighter1984 1984-04-01Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 4 →
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If workers don't change with the labour movement aronoa ta dahstn l achion andl fram haina anti aou nau thon whinh hacn't onlinnod itc seen arguing for the YS Con- seen arguing for the YS Conterence to debate Lesbian anc Gay rights. We've been saying that Lesbian and gay liberation is an issue for all of us, and that the YS should be in the forefront of a campaign to defend and extend lesbian and gay rights.
Lesbian and gay rights and liberation is a class issue. While capitalism remains lesbians and gay men will be oppressed. But that doesn't mean we can ignore the issue and hope everything will be WOMEN If workers don't change from being anti-gay now then why assume that after a revolution the same people won't be anti-gay and anti-gay prej udice spill over into a socialist society?
If the labour movement doesn't stop ignoring the issue then the bosses will be able to continue to use anti-gay prejudices to divide workers at their will. At the moment, gay and lesbian workers can be sacked just because of their sexuality, with the labour movement which hasn't equipped its membership with the arguments and will to defend gay and lesbian people.
Some YS comrades think that anti-gay attitudes will disappear under socialism and good trade unionists will automatically leap to the defence of victimised gay and lesbian workers. Even if this is true, it isn't an adequate answer to give to young gays and lesbians who are oppressed now.
NO SOCIALISM WITHOUT GAY IBERATION Lesbian and gay oppression doesn't just go on at work, it goes on everywhere. In the streets and clubs, at the hands of police and thugs, in schools where 'homosexuality' is never presented to the student who is growing up gay as a valid way to live.
The courts will still take lesbians children away and will prosecute gay men under 21 and their lovers for having sex.
We are against oppression, and we are in favour of fighting alongside lesbians and gay men against that oppression. The YS should be too.
Lesbians and gay men challenge the idea that's dominant in class society that the right way to live is in a family. That challenge is for the good of all of us. Capitalism controls our sexuality, it warps and distorts our tive worthwhile to.
A start can be made by purging all fascists from our ranks.
Black people need black sections within the labour movement within which they can organise autonomously. Linked to this, positive discrimination should operate in the labour movement in favour of black people. This would 0111 give black people the opportunity and the space to convert their direct experience of racism into political action.
Positive discrimination, though important, is not enough. The labour movement has got to fight on clearly anti-racist politics.
In the LPYS we must take up the struggle against increases in police powers, such as the Police Bill, we