5000 march gay rights
Socialist Press1978 1978-02-15Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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The Gay News Defence Campaign march on Saturday was a great success.
Some four to five thousand people joined in what was the largest demonstration for gay rights yet seen in this country.
Contingents from gay groups and women's groups marched with others from political organisations and students unions, but only one trade union branch banner was in evidence (TGWU 5/833 Blackwells, Oxford).
This turn out reflected the perspectives of the organisers but it also showed the stage of development of the gay movement in Britain.
Gay caucuses have been built in some unions as part of a turn towards the organised labour movement.
But in general gays have not recognised how their problems are tied up with those facing all workers.
Seeing only the total refusal of the Labour bureaucracy to fight for their demands, most gays see no reason to take up a struggle against these traitors and build a new, revolutionary Typically this situation has not been improved by the interventions of the SWP and the IMG who offer no alternative to the prevailing mood of self-congratulation last weekend.
By putting forward such slogans as "Whitehouse out, Gay Rights In", the centrists of the IMG showed once again how they adapt and dissolve their politics in an abdication of leadership and principle.
Being "good" and "angry" won't win gays their democratic rights if they have no programme with which to fight oppression under capitalism.