Teachers' leader in anti-gay outburst

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My association "never knowingly recruits homosexual teachers". So said the leader of the National Association of Schoolmasters, Terry Casey, in a scandalous Kadio 4 interview last week.

This reactionary and sinister attack on the rights of gay teachers was launched in response to a "kit" of information and films produced by the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) for use in school sex education.

Proposition 6

Casey's witch-hunting words were frighteningly reminiscent of the recent The Common Market has been an issue increasingly to the fore in Ireland over recent months.

The "will he? won't he?". haggling by Irish Premier Jack Lynch over . the European Monetary System (EMS) ended last week with a decision to remain outside -after failing to extract substantial sums of cash aid from the richer EEC countries (see p.S).

But at the same time the groundwork is being laid for the elections to the so-called "European Parliament", to be held next June.

Irish participation in the elections is part of an effort by both the British imperialist oppressors in the occupied six counties and by their lackeys in Lynch's government in the 26 counties to tie Ireland more firmly into the economic/ military bloc of European capitalism.

This will have the effect of strengthening all those forces opposing the war of national liberation now carrying on in the. six counties, and propping up campaign for "Proposition 6" in California which would-had it been passedhave produced the sacking of all homosexual teachers from California.

That ramnaion 81790 campaigl Was organised by the far right.

'Unacceptable risk

But it was opposed by almost the whole of the California trade union movement.

Casey, however, wants the same result while at the same time posing as defender of the intere ›sts of teachers.

"I wouldn't want

persecuted" he said.

And then in the next breath he added that:

'They are an unacceptable risk in the teaching the bourgeois regime in the Recognising this line-up, Sinn Fein has declared itself clearly for an active boycott of the June elections, and, according to the paper An Phoblacht, has made moves to internationalise such a campaign at a recent meeting in Turin.

The Sinn Fein delegate pointed out that the main effects of the EEC in Ireland have been to raise the cost of living, weaken native Irish industry at the expense of multinationals, throw open Ireland's fishing waters to superior EEC fleets and undermine Irish neutrality (Ireland being the only EEC country not a member of NATO).

Hostility And in turn the EEC brings NATO support for the British occupying army, and European pressure on the British government not to surrender to Irish liberation forces.

With hostility against the EEC rising amongst Irish people-particularly in view of the failure of promised profession ...

Why anti-gay bigots such as Casey should believe that homosexual teachers are any greater "risk" than their heterosexual colleagues is not explained.

Absurd argument

Doubtless it is part of the reactionary bourgeois mythology that depicts gays as incapable of controlling their sexual feelings, while