------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
HARRY HAY: A FOUNDER OF MODERN GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT By Preston Wood Los Angeles Before the Stonewall Rebellion, life for gay men, lesbians, transsexual and transgender people was almost always a living hell--a life of fear, isolation, secrecy and severe oppression. In the words of Oscar Wilde, the great English writer who was maligned and imprisoned for being a feminine man who loved other men, it was indeed "the love that dare not speak its name." Homophobia and trans-phobia, from feudalism through today's capitalist world, is ever present in the structures of class rule--in the courts, the police, the military and the legislatures. Anti-gay and anti-trans violence are sustained by a system that relies on racism, sexism, anti-gay and anti- trans bigotry to divide the workers in order to perpetuate minority class rule and maximize its profits. In the repressive 1950s--the period of anti-communist reaction--much of the "red scare" witch hunt also used gay baiting to target progressives, thereby destroying careers and lives. In the state of California in the 1950s meetings or gatherings of more than two "homosexual men" were illegal. This meant that the right to free speech and assembly was denied to untold numbers of people. Women who had short- cropped hair or appeared to be too "masculine" were declared suspect. Men who were too "effeminate" were disdained and driven out of society. Transgender people had to fear, then as now, for their lives each day. Communists and homosexuals were declared by right-wing demagogues to be the greatest threat to the so-called "American way of life." A COMMUNIST AND A GAY MAN Harry Hay, who died this Oct. 24 at the age of 90, was both. He was a militant, class-conscious communist and a gay man, who stood up to the ruling class and said, "No more! We are going to fight back!" Hay's deep commitment to working-class solidarity has been an inspiration for young lesbian, gay, bi and trans leftists and revolutionary communists throughout the world. Hay's theoretical contribution to progressive politics was to explain that gays are an oppressed group under capitalism and that working-class solidarity meant unity against all forms of oppression. He spent most of his life advocating a coalition of all those who are oppressed under capitalism. Hay's family emigrated to Los Angeles from the mining town of Worthing, England, in 1919. Aspiring to be an actor, Hay met Will Geer, the actor and political leftist. Geer introduced Hay to the Communist Party. By 1935 both were members. Hay often said that his political life changed when he worked to support a maritime strike in San Francisco. The National Guard was called in and two workers were killed and many others injured. Hay never wavered in his support of militant unionism, nor in his opposition to imperialist war. In the late 1940s, Hay began turning his attention to the extreme oppression of gay men in society, and in 1949 in Los Angeles he founded the first gay rights organization in the United States that survived the extreme repression of U.S. capitalist society: the Mattachine Society. Other groups over the years had tried to organize but were crushed by government repression. When Mattachine members met, they had to bring what was known as a "cover" with them--female friends or relatives-- because meetings of more than two homosexual men were illegal in California. When the Los Angeles police arrested one of their members for so-called "lewd conduct," the Mattachine Society fought back by taking it to court. It won, attracting thousands of new members from all over the country. In 1955 Hay was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to testify. Throughout his life, Hay devoted his work to building solidarity with Native nations, Latinos, African Americans and other oppressed people. He actively supported the presidential campaign of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984 by initiating the Gay Caucus of the Rainbow Coalition. When the historic Stonewall Rebellion occurred in 1969 in New York City, Hay hailed it as the birth of the modern mass movement for lesbian and gay rights. "The importance of Stonewall is that it changed the pronoun from "I" to "we," he told the Associated Press. He described how gays now saw themselves as an oppressed minority in capitalist society. Harry Hay's biographer, Stuart Timmons, refers to Hay's class-conscious struggle for equality for LGBT people: "Harry Hay's determined, visionary activism significantly lifted gays out of oppression. All gay people continue to benefit from his fierce affirmation of gays as a people." One might add that all working and oppressed people have benefited from his vision of working-class solidarity and an end to all forms of racism, bigotry and oppression. His insistence that scientific Marxism be applied to the question of LBGT oppression will increasingly be seen as a landmark contribution to the struggle for working-class unity on a global scale. - 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. 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