Fighting for GAY

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Gays and lesbians are by no means equal, though. The age of consent for gay men is 21 - five years higher than the age of consent for heterosexuals. This means that young gays have to deny their sexuality for five more years, or run the risk of prosecution. A clause in the Sexual Offences Act 1967 also makes it illegal to commit any sexual act in public. Seems reasonable enough until you discover the way it is abused by the police.

If you are a gay man (lesbians don't exist in the law) you can't hold hands or kiss in public, sleep in a hotel (it's a public building) or pick each other up in public places (where else do you meet people?). All these activities are legal for straight couples.

If you are a woman, society tells you it's your place to have and look after children. But if you are a lesbian, it would seem you aren't a woman any more because the courts tend to take children away from lesbian mothers.

However, it is not only capitalism which contributes to the suppression of gays and lesbians. The Labour Party, by its silence, has failed to take up the issue crimination.

Even the Labour Party Young Socialists refuses to discuss gay liberation, while the Trades Union Congress refuses to include in its equal opportunities policy, the right of gays and lesbians to be offered the same opportunities as straight people when looking for work.

Gay workers can get sacked just for being gay, especially if they work with young people. Judith Williams, a care worker, who spoke at a Class Fighter meeting at YS summer camp is one such person. We believe gays and lesbians should have the right to express their own sexuality freely and easily. It is just as legitimate as heterosexuality.

Class Fighter has been involved in setting up Gay LPYS. This group fights for gay liberation together with the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights. One of its central aims is to get the age of consent for gay men brought into line with the law for heterosexuals. At the moment the Labour Party leaders want to bring the gay male age of consent down to 18, not 16.

We demand:

*The age of consent for gay men to be the same as for heterosexuals, 16.

*An end to all discrimination against gays and lesbians.

*The scrapping of all criminal laws relating to gays and lesbians.

*Lesbians to have custody of their children and to be allowed to adopt and foster children as well.

*The Labour Party, LPYS and trade unions to actively take up gay and lesbian oppression and campaign against it, in the workplace and elsewhere.

*Sex education in schools to portray gay and lesbian sexuality as a valid form of sexual orientation and counter prejudice against gays and lesbians.

*Support for the Gay LPYS group.

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en aren't sitting Women are oppressed in capitalist society - not only through being paid less than men (despite the Equal Pay Act) but also ideologically and through the family structure and the fact that the burden of housework falls on women.

We are brought up to the idea that a woman's place is in the home, looking after children, husbands and aged relatives. This idea is also reflected in the kinds of jobs women do usually servicing jobs like cleaning, typing, catering laundry work, nursing and so on Tories This suits the Tory government, particularly now, when massive cuts are being made in the public sector. So not only are women being thrown out of their jobs, but the burden of the work -looking after the young, the sick, the elderly, falls back even more on women in the home. That is not considered "work' - it's just what women ought to do.

At school, we are encouraged to do home economics and typing to prepare us for a future of being a housewife and mother with maybe a job part-time or full time for a few years if we're lucky.

Sexist attitudes towards women don't just come from the Tories. Sexist comments, jokes, and sexual harassment at work, in the street or at home are daily occurrences women are faced with. We say this is something that has to be opposed. It splits the working class in the same way that racism does, only more subtly.

Women don't play an equal part in the trade unions. Yo u're always he aring trade • HAVE NICE 11s4. union officials saying women are politically backward - 'they won't come forward for positions' or 'they won't go on strike'. Struggles like those at Lee Jeans or the Liverpool typists show this isn't true. But women have to overcome years of being told they shouldn't be involved in politics.

That's why we fight for positive discrimination in favour of women in the trade unions, the Labour Party, the YS, to encourage women to come forward and play an equal part in politics and the labour movement.

Women don't have control over their own bodies, and attitudes to women's sexuality are discriminatory too. A woman who sleeps with lots of different men is called a 'slag' or a 'tart' while a man who does the same is admired as 'masculine'.

Lesbian sex is not acknowledged by law, so while this protects women from prosecution, it reflects society's attitude to women's sexuality. Women are taught

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Phat their sexuality is all to do with men and children. Pleasure doesn't get a look in. Go through the chapter on human reproduction in any school biology book and you won't find any mention of the clitoris. So its not surprising that society doesn't even bother to outlaw lesbian sex. The argument runs like this. Women are not sexual, so they can't have sex without a man. Obvious, isn't it? Lesbians in't exist!

If a woman does get pregnant, it isn't her choice whether she wants to spend the next 20 years of her life looking after kids, it's the doctors, the state and the Church who decide for her.

We say women should have free safe abortion and contraception demand.

The present-day family structure -father at the head, mother and children below - is an oppressive unit. It serves to organise society in a way that's convenient for capitalism. It depends on the mother figure providing the care for the children and the husband, by doing the cooking, the washing and the cleaning.

We say that these tasks should be socialised - that women should not have to do them, and that they could be organised collectively in a community. This would make more sense economically (you could have a free launderette instead For details of Women's Fightback activities and a copy of the latest issue of Women's Fight! lack newspaper, write to 13, Bu: ton Rd London N19 and on of 30 private washing machines); it woul also free women from the drudgery anc boredom of housework, and enable ther to play a full, equal part in the produc tion of wealth and throughout society.

Family

The family is also oppressive for the children, as the parents have absolute authority over them. How many times have you heard 'Because I say so', as the reason for having to do something?

The present family system has not existed forever. It is a convenient economic unit for capitalism, which restricts and oppresses women and children. The economic and legal restrictions which force people to live in such units should be removed and there should be a choice.

Such changes need a huge economic upheaval, and a planned economy. Also, the struggle for socialism cannot be successful without the women of the working class coming forward to fight for their rights. Socialist revolution and women's liberation are therefore inseparably linked.

*Fight for women's liberation support Women's Fightback.

*For a woman's right to a job.

*Equal pay and opportunity women.

*Free and safe abortion ception on demand

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nDW, Release all political prisoner *Positive discrimination in favour of women in all labour movement bodies.

*Creches to be provided at all labour movement meetings.

*Fight sexism -- educate young men. *Financial and legal independence for women. Troops out Ireland has a British problem. The British partitioned Ireland in 1921 and created the artificial statelet in the North. Britain lopped off six of the nine counties of Ulster, and the boundaries were drawn in such a way that the Protestants were guaranteed a majority. Northern Ireland was run as a sectarian state, and the Protestants were kept loyal to Unionist (Tory) politics by marginal privileges.

While the Protestants declare themselves 'loyal' to Britain, the British state has difficulty in controlling the excesses of Orangeism. In the 1960s Britain began some timid efforts at reform. This sparked off a mass civil rights movement among the Catholics. The Protestant bigots responded with brutal attacks and attempted pogroms.

In 1969 the British troops were sent onto the streets of Northern Ireland, supposedly to protect the Catholic minority from attack. Within a short time it was clear that the reason they had gone there was to protect the interests of the British bosses.

Soon there was widespread opposition from the Catholic community. And at the head of the fighting against the British Army in the streets were the youth. Since then we have seen massacres by the British Army like Bloody Sunday, January 1972, where 14 people were shot dead while on a peaceful demonstration. This action passed almost with*Lesbian mothers to have c their children and be allowed and foster children as well.

*For socialisation of domes free nurseries, laundrettes, ity restaurants.

rel out criticism in the British media. Time and again we hear of the 'terrorist' activ. ities of the IRA, but hardly ever do we hear of the terrorism of the British Army who shoot down Catholic youth in cold blood.

Since the late 1960s, Britain has largely given up its feeble plans for reform, and its policy has been simply to restore order by trying to beat down the Catholics.

We stand by the struggle of the people of Ireland to determine their own future. We don't recognise the validity of the state of Northern Ireland. Ireland is one • Page 15 ustody of to adopt tic chores communcountry and there is no reason why it should be split into two. We must fight rigorously to get British troops out of Ireland.

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We defend the Republican movement without conditions against British imperialism and support them critically - we do not support all their methods.

There needs to be a mass mobilisation of workers in Ireland and Britain, with a ›cialist leadership, to drive the troops out.

The myth that the republican movement have got no support in Northern Ireland was crushed by the election of Bobby Sands and then Owen Carron as H-block candidates to Parliament. Republican prisoners are captured prisoners of war. They are tried in special no-jury courts, and then treated as ordinary criminals. That's what the H-Block struggle was all about, and we fully supported it.

We salute the courage of the martyrs who have died for that cause. We blame Thatcher and her government for their murders. The Labour leaders and past Labour governments are their accomplices. They sent the troops onto the streets of Ireland in the first place, and Labour's spokesperson on Northern Ireland, Don Concannon, went to tell Bobby Sands that he agreed with the Tories only days before Sands died.

We live in an imperialist country. What does that mean? Imperialism is the economic and political domination and exploitation of smaller, weaker countries by strong capitalist countries. The USA and We welcome the stand taken by the Greater London Council and its leader, Ken Livingstone, who have had talks with the Republican leaders. They are breaking out of the traditional Labour policy of bipartisanship (which means having the same policies on Ireland as the Tories).

We support the 1982 Labour Party conference decision to ban plastic bullets and we will campaign to ensure this policy is carried out.

Class Fighter supporters demand a break with the bipartisan approach of the Labour leaders. We believe that the issue of Ireland is central to our work in the labour movement.

WE DEM *British troops out of Ireland now.

*Self-determination for the Irish people as a whole. A united Ireland -with all legitimate minority rights for the Protestants.

*Political status for political prisoners. Smash H-Block and the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

*Support and build the Labour Committee on Ireland.

*Solidarity with Irish Republicans fighting for a united Irish Republic -and especially with Irish socialists fighting for a workers' republic.

Britain have always fought to find new markets for their products and new places to exploit for cheap raw materials and cheap labour. Examples are the British in India and Africa - the old British Empire - and American involvement in South America (e.g. Chile) and Vietnam.

Imperialism today is not direct colonialism. It tries to be as subtle as possible, for instance, the British government maintains a steely silence over its role in Oman. But the recent decision by Reagan

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to step up military aid to the Army in crisis, the most notorious one being the El Salvador for use against the liberation demand for import controls. This demand forces and their supporters, shows that stirs up all the most backward ideas about imperialist aggression is no less vicious buying British and making Britain great' than it ever was. We are on the side of the again. In fact what import controls mean oppressed against the imperialists. is 'pass the unemployment on to our We are internationalists. Capitalism is brothers and sisters in another country'. an international system that operates That sentiment has nothing to do with across national boundaries. If we just con- international socialism. cern ourselves with British affairs, then As youth, our interests lie with supwe are falling into the bosses trap of porting the youth of other countries nationalism. They try to play one lot of fighting for their liberation. In Nicaragua, El Salvador, Turkey and countless other workers (British) off against another, e.g. South Africans. BL workers in countries, youth have played and are Britain are paid around £90 a week, while playing a leading role in fighting the their counterparts in South Africa (who imperialists. We must solidarise and try to are black) are paid £70 a month. build links with them Obviously BL workers anywhere in the world have more in common with each other than they have with the likes of Michael Edwardes. And this applies to workers in the textile, engineering and countless other industries This also means that to nationalist solutions *For in tern *Solida rity struggles. *Fight agai 'little England we are opposed *For the to the capitalist Europe! ational with nst im! natior united ort alist SOC . Page 17 socialism. all anti-imperial controls and demands. ialist states

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