Fighting my ignorance too

I detected an irony within the covers of April 24's issue of Salient. Did you?

'Gays: The fight against ignorance' was the heading of the centre spread. Yet Roger, your editorial in the same issue could scarcely reveal more ignorance of homosexuality, homosexual peoples, the gay life style, and Gay Liberation. Further, I doubt if you've succeeded in your aim i.e. to inform your readers exactly what stand Salient takes on this issue.

We'll grant you that the bourgeois-value-dominated society isn't very nice to us. Naturally we'll agree the treatment of gays (including transvestites and transexuals) is unjust, and we'll grant that there are other minority groups who suffer a raw deal too. But we've been around for at least several thousand years and lived in many different social systems and most of them have been far from kind to us.

If you're campaigning for our right of 'survival' and 'reasonable enjoyment of life', excuse our ingratitude when we chuck your charity and token broadmindedness right back in your face. I am not 'a case study of the unfortunate results of the system we all live in' — I'm no more unfortunate by definition than you and your heterosexual mates. And as I've already pointed out, they've been turning out gays for years, even in socialists countries.

So you're upset about 'distortion of language'. Surely Roger you've a vocabulary liberally sprinkled with adapted and adaptable terminology. In fact I believe it's a process for which we must give heterosexuals credit more often. Do you know the origins of the put-down 'faggot', for instance. That term derived from the days when they publicly incinerated gays... 'faggot' also meaning a bundle of sticks of course. Firstly, what's behind the whole concept of liberation if not the individual fighting for freedom for his/herself or other people's — a freedom which has been unjustly denied. Secondly, many gays aren't all that keen On the shackles of 'class, race or imperialism' either.

Question time continued: what 'cause' are we ignoring? What are the 'wider priorities' which you think we ignore. Society's stuffed, we all know that even if we don't care to admit it. Many of us also know that it's either our present society that goes, or us....so good-bye to the white, male, middle-class, capitalist society. Unfortunately there aren't all that many countries where we can run if we feel inclined. Socialist countries oppress us as well.

Who's suffering 'sexual inhibition and dis-orienation' Roger? It's certainly not us. Have you taken your own sexuality out of the closet for examination lately? And for the third time we don't thrive in capitalist economies alone.

What's wrong with 'gayness' as a long term way of life? Surely your lack of recommendation doesn't stem from the fact that the gay lifestyle isn't particularly amenable to the nuclear family, the pillar of the society you so intensely dislike. Besides with token liberals like yourself in power, could we really expect much more?

At this point I'll step down from my pedestal, pat you on the shoulder and say 'If you're straight well sure, make the best of it.....' Absurd isn't It? But no more so than the condescending back-pat you're offering us.

You're so fucking right that Gay Liberation will do nothing to remove the 'causes of gayness' Are the Black Power movements doing anything to remove the 'causes' of darker skin colours. They're not interested, we're not interested — Just like we're not interested in removing the 'causes' of heterosexuality. Nor do we advocate that 'the gay life is the good life' For us it's good because we're gay and it's rather tiring (and futile) to pretend to be otherwise. I' you don't want it, then that's your business. Meanwhile we'll carry right on fighting your sort of ignorance and worse.

I can't see much relevance in the quotation from Engels unless it was included to intimidate the reader. There's no logical reason why gays shouldn't work for society provided that society is worth working for and provided its members aren't so inhibited that they must oppress people on grounds of sexual orientation alone.

In conclusion i suggest Roger that next time you propose setting down a few of your own thoughts on a topic (especially by way of an editorial) you make sure they have some coherence and preferably at least a minimal degree of accuracy. Ignorance always shows through no matter how wordy its expression.