Re: the next wedge issue

[Waistline2]

In a message dated 11/21/03 8:12:33 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: When I was young I was assaulted many times as a queer.  I didn't even know what that meant.  There are certainly many people like Melvin who are in the left and feel they are leftists.  To them I am morally wrong.  To what extent that affects my ability to be on the left I don't know.  But we can't build a left that includes gay people that sees them as morally wrong.  They must keep their mouths shut, don't ask don't tell because there are so many who disapprove.   Comment   Well, for me the issue is you being beat pure and simple. You should not be beat up period. Those who beat you should have been punished.   An issue arose on the factory concerning the rights of male homosexuals and one particular male. This particular male was physically beautiful - stunning attractive, and did not want to use the men restroom and began using the women's restroom. Some women objected to a man being in the women's restroom. This issue arose in the first place from continuous solicitations from men, more often than not in the restroom. There was even an incident where Renee was kissed and felt on in the restroom.   My first act was to ask Renee, what is it you want to happen and point out the persons harrassing you. Renee stated, "no I want the harrassment to stop and not to get someone fired."   The person that manhandled Renee would have gotten time off from work, not because Renee was homosexual but because you cannot harrass people or touch people. I explained to the fellows in a very vulgar manner that they would end up on the street in no undercertain terms if they did not stop immediately.   What remained was the question of which restroom to use. I hit the wall on this issue because the Company refused to build a third set of bathrooms. A temporary solution was made. A couple of bathrooms were set aside for Renee or any other homosexual male to use off limits to males. Women could use these restrooms if they choose because there was no harassment from the women in the plant.   The point is that one does not have to agree with someone to protect ones "rights" Further, with the acceptance of homosexuality in society a number of social issue arise, of which homosexual marriage is one.   In the political group I was part of there was never a political position on homosexuality because it is not a political question in our meaning of social movement generated on the basis of changes in the means of production. But a social issue fought out in the realm of politics. Therefore, no one in our group could fight for a position on homosexuality one way or another.   On this matter of homosexuals being granted state sanctioned marriage, is not the real issue, the right of the state to grant marriage license in the first place -- to those over the age of consent?  On this question I would certainly be expelled from ones sectarian group because I would vote that we have no right to take a position one way or another on people, but rather the state.   The world of real politics require thinking matters out based on ones political tradition. Now, we did take a political posture on the question of abortion because we are dealing with a distinct configuration of humanity whose class attributes gyrate on the basis of a property relations. That is why we refer to this as the Women Question. There is no such thing as the "Homosexuality Question." There is no such thing as the "Black Question," or the "Handicap Question."   There does exist what past generations of Marxist called the National question - African American Liberation and Revolution in the United States, for instance. The question of Gay marriage is a question of the state really. I oppose the states right to grant marriage license because this is a question of a property relations as it arose encased in what is called the Women Question.   I do not care who marries whom or have sex with whom, provided they are consenting adults. I teach and taught my children that homosexuality as it arose is history is primarily a question of subjugation and domination on the part of one section of society by another. I teach them that homosexuality is primarily - not exclusively, learned behavior.   I maintain that at this juncture of history homosexuality is propagated by the bourgeois and part of the decay and degeneracy in society. As such it is not a crime and in the new world to come one will be able to assess human relations outside the bounds of property.   Were there homosexuals in our party? For such and a couple had a crush on me because I am not hard to look at. The growth and spread of homosexuality in our society has everything do with increased rates of incarceration - especially, amongst black males and is coined "the down low." The wearing of pants exposing ones buttock, is a fashion that originated in the prison system.   We can pretend that there is no connection between rape and sexual abuse of children and homosexuality but the fact speak of a different logic. I am no expert at anything but have interviewed close to a thousand men - my wife perhaps ten thousand people, and homosexuality amongst the people interview in connected with some form of sex abuse as a child in at least 80% of the cases.   Then I spent several years dealing with men in the penal system that had become institutionalized - habitual criminals, and suffered from drug addiction. We are not dealing with an abstract question of sex and ones intimacy. Homosexuality and its growth in our very real society expresses the decay of bourgeois property.   I abhor homosexuality - not the homosexual, because we are not talking about "free" individuals making an abstract decision about intimacy but the logic of a social process of decay in bourgeois society. I could give less than damn about what consenting adults do.   If a large part of my assumption is that homosexuality is a question of domination by men - power and property, and victimization - child sex abuse, why on earth would a person advocate further victimizing and humiliating he who is already debased?  I abhor homosexuality - not the homosexual, and equating this with being handicapped is outrageous. Equating this issue with the Women Question means describing how it was generated on the basis of the emergence of the division of labor in society as property evolves and changes its form, content and finally its dissolution.   This question of the unity of the left is a phony issue in my opinion because unity is based on action and not ones "political posture" on a non class issue. The issue of gay marriage is a question of the state and its boundary and right to grant a license. Homosexuality is not political but rather the politics is the state. The bourgeoisie understands this and presents the issue in a manner that traps everyone - except me. The license is an _expression_ of a property relationship.   The bourgeoisie is very clever in its political maneuver. The bourgeoisie created the Gay Liberation Movement and its ideology.   At least I understand what it is that I abhor and it is not human beings or the intimate relations of consenting adults. The economic data concerning homosexuals and wage structures is revealing. I had this data somewhere but what the heck.   I would never considering a sectarian political organization in the first place. And when the workers ask what I think about gay marriages they will be told the truth and not given a bag of ideological trash about sex. People been getting married and living together as they basically see fit, within the norms of a society - and norms change, forever. What gives the state the right to issue a damn license to who is married in the first place?  Until we understand how we are played by the bourgeoisie like a bass fiddle and the real issue is understood as property all of us gets driven lower.   Bigotry . . . yea, right.   Melvin P.