Policies for Gay Rights

Scan page 8

As the economic crisis of imperialism continues its anarchic and destructive course, it generates a profound and deepening crisis at every level of bourgeois society.

In its struggle for survival, the capitalist ruling class is driven to attempt sharpening attacks on the international proletariat and its organisations.

'Austerity measures' and wage control are the commonplace policies of social democratic and bourgeois governments alike.

Alongside their economic significance, these measures are aimed at weakening the strength of a working class that for thirty years has sustained few major defeats while achieving many major victories.

Tensions

At the same time, the bourgeoisie seeks to divide the working class by exploiting and creating anew the racial, national and sexual tensions which emerge from economic deprivation and political frustration.

In promoting such internal rivalries, the ruling class also works to consolidate the power of the bourgeois state apparatus by increasing centralised legislation and attacking democratic rights.

All these moves are unified at the level of ideology by a renewed emphasis on the themes of 'national interest' 'a woman's place is in the home', 'law and order' ', with all the other dangerous cant of bourgeois reaction.

This combined counter-offensive is directed against all workers as an organised class. But inevitably its first victims are the traditionally least organised and weakest sections-in particular and racial minorities.

Gays too now face wave of repression and persecution internationally.

'Decency'

Under the banner of "decency', religious bigots in Britain and the USA have gone on the rampage against homosexuality.

In Canada and France, the freedom of gays to organise has been denied by the police violence of the bourgeois state.

These outbursts undoubtedly form the prelude to a savage concerted campaign which will aim to isolate and annihilate the gay movement.

Capitalism has never condeded more than token legalisation of homosexual behaviour. Nor could it ever do so, as the situation in Britain clearly illustrates.

In 1967, the partners in today's anti-working class coalition government passed the Sexual Offences Act. which legalised homosexual behaviour in private for males over 21 (as in most countries the British state has never introduced specific legislation discriminating against lesbians).

Since this 'liberal' measure has been in force, prosecutions of gays have actually increased, with police raids and round-ups in some regions.

Thugs

'Queer-bashing' remains a combine violent assaults on individual gays with attempts to wreck the organisations of the gay movement.

Beyond the everyday experience of social repression, gays come up against hostile discrimination as soon as they seek employment, housing ur custody of children.

This situation is perpetuated by the bourgeoisie through the education system and the media.

We do not share any utopian illusions that sexual liberation will triumph within capitalism.

Such freedom and equality cannot be gained until the material bases of oppression and alienation have first been destroyed.

Productive forces

When the dictatorship of the proletariat has replaced the family and built the socialist planned economy which can develop the international productive forces to that stage where universal want can be abolished-only then will full human liberty be possible.

But while we recognise that the distortion of sexuality is inextricably bound up with the repressive character of class society, this does not in any way mean that the struggle against sexual oppression should be delayed until after the revolutionary seizure of state power by the working class.

Rather it determines the direction which that struggle must take if it is to be accomplished successfully.

The politics of the gay liberation movement which erupted in the late 1960s were overwhelmingly petty bourgeois.

But the experience of this time convinced many gays that only socialism could end sexual oppression and that it was therefore necessary to turn in some way to the working class as an ally.

Understandably repelled by the treacherous leaders of the labour movement and unable to see the need to overthrow its bureaucratic sway, other layers rejected this perspective and turned aside into community politics' • say separatism and other blind alleys where they will find no solution, but only clubbings in the dark.

It is only by confronting the historic crisis of leadership within the working class that gays can seriously advance the fight for their liberation.

At every step they will meet with attempts at sabotage, disguised betrayals and open attacks from the labour leaders who have never lifted a finger to fight sexual oppression.

treatment This is the standard treatment dealt out to all workers who challenge the bureaucracy's pact with capitalism.

In sharp contrast, the Workers Socialist League fights for the defence of all gays victimised for their sexuality by private capital or by the state and its agents.

As revolutionary socialists, we fully defend the right of all people to express their sexuality freely, where this does not involve coercion of others.

But in fighting for this basic democratic right, we totally reject any position of free speech for 'fascist gays', groupings of which have emerged in the United States.

Of itself, homosexuality is not in some mythical way "progressive', any more than it is 'degenerate' PASS THE GAY RIGHTS BILLI 17LrY Whatever their sexuality, fascists are committed enemies of the whole working class and of course, as historical experience has shown, to all gays.

They must be denied any platform for their filth, and any attempt they make to participate in joint action with other gays must be violently rejected.

At the same time we give absolutely no support to moves by the bourgeois state, or by any other force to attack these fascists on the grounds of their sexual behaviour.

Any such manoeuvres must be transformed into action aimed at destroying these scum because of what they represent politically.

In response to physical attacks by fascists and other reactionary elements, gays in certain areas have already made efforts to organise self-defence, as have immigrants and feminists when confronted by similar assaults.

But fascism uses these methods to pave the way for a more direct battle with the whole working class-the only force which can crush this threat to humanity.

It is therefore vital that such preparations be unified under the political leadership of the proletariat in the form of workers defence squads.

Wherever the threat of fascist activity arises, such squads must be built through trade union branches, trades councils and local Labour Party organisations.

By patrolling the streets and protecting potential victims, workers defence squads can present a united front against fascism and shatter its political credibility which depends heavily on an ability to control the streets and institute organised anarchy there.

It is through participating in such joint actions that all workers can experience in a living way their common political interests, beyond the sexual and racial divisions fostered by the . bourgeoisie for its own ends.

The fight to end sexual oppression cannot be divorced from the struggle to overthrow capitalism, while the war for socialist revolution cannot be waged without a campaign to destroy the bondage of women and the repression of gays.

As part of our fight for the Transitional Programme for socialist revolution, the Workers Socialist League supports the democratic demands of all oppressed groups.

We call for the abolition of all legislation which oppresses or discriminates against homosexuals and homosexual behaviour.

The epoch of imperialist decay offers only two perspectives--that of barbarism and that of socialism.

Gay people are presented with a stark alternative-the concentration camps of fascism, or the fight to win the leadership of the working class in the struggle for world

Scan page 9

SOUTALISI PRESS. neiretui l0 Mai.

----- pull-quotes -----

tavourite pursuit of reaction- ary thugs, while the fascists