------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 10, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
LESBIAN, GAY, BI, TRANS RIGHTS: WHAT A DIFFERENCE A MOVEMENT MAKES! By Martha Grevatt [Excerpts from a talk at the Sept. 21-22 Workers World Party conference.] What a difference a movement makes! With a few exceptions, the hateful anti-sodomy laws that criminalized same-sex love are in the trashcan of history. Eleven states and numerous cities have passed laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Workers at numerous companies have won domestic partner benefits and anti-discrimination language. We can even go to Vermont and get a civil union, with all the benefits of marriage. Or we can travel to heroic Venezuela and get an actual marriage license. Transgender people, who led the Stonewall Rebellion, have less protection and benefits, but now there are a number of cities and workplaces, and one state, that do prohibit anti- trans discrimination. The AFL-CIO labor federation has an official lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender constituency group, Pride At Work. Can LGBT people relax, confident that the state and the ruling class are now sufficiently enlightened and are going to do the right thing? Yes, says the Human Rights Campaign: "Corporate America is the unlikely hero" in the push for LGBT equality, it claims. No, say revolutionary Marxists--dialectical materialists who understand politics by analyzing its contradictions. Despite these stupendous achievements, how safe are we when the bigots can use Sept. 11 to launch a new wave of anti- Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes, and when GIs are coming home from Afghanistan and murdering their female companions? How safe are we, in the current climate of intense political repression under the guise of "homeland security"? And how safe are we, when even as we speak Iraq could once again be bombed by the Pentagon death machine, which is no friend of LGBT people? The religious right is mobilizing to overturn the laws that give us some protection; they are even trying to bring back the anti-sodomy laws. They are spreading racist, sexist, homophobic and now anti-Islamic hatred. Let us not repeat the errors of the German movement of the early 20th century. For decades they had built a movement for the abolition of a hated law that sent gay men to jail. They lost momentum and direction when they supported their government in the first imperialist world war, strengthening the very forces of reaction that had held them down for so long. Fast forward to a hot New York evening in June of 1969, when the love that dared not speak its name became the love that roared and thundered and rocked the patriarchy and class society. In its early days, this movement opposed the Vietnam War and defended the Black Panther Party, whose support was reciprocal. The National Liberation Front of Vietnam was the inspiration for the name Gay Liberation Front in the U.S. Fast forward to 1981, when the Reaganites threatened to invade Central America. A march on the Pentagon had the first openly gay speaker at an anti-war protest. Fast forward to the Martin Luther King Day holiday, 1991. As bombs fall on Iraq, a march of 100,000 brings out a huge contingent of people screaming, "We're here, we're queer, we're not going to war." Fast forward to this year's LGBT Pride marches with contingents from Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. Class society destroyed the honor and esteem that trans people, same-sex-loving people, and also women enjoyed in traditional societies. Dialectics recognizes a law, however, called the negation of the negation. The brutality of the capitalist state made the Stonewall Rebellion and these 30- plus years of heroic struggle inevitable. This struggle, if it stands in solidarity with every movement against war, racism, sexism and economic exploitation, will reach its final and liberating conclusion: the unconditional equality, dignity and freedom for every gender expression and every expression of human love and affection. We call this socialism. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
