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Editorial

Not so gay

Last week's front cover on the Gay Liberation Conference raised a few eyebrows, for a number of different reasons. Since we have an 'in-depth' article this week on the same topic, perhaps it is timely to set down a few of my thoughts on the topic.

People often wonder where Salient stands on any particular topic, and may have noticed an absence of any clear 'line' in last week's article on gays. Sometimes Salient has no particular line to push of course, being the product of an uncomfortable marriage between a 'student newspaper' (whatever that means) and a 'vehicle for left-wing propaganda' (as many describe it).

I support the gay movement primarily as I am inclined to support most individuals or groups that are repressed, discriminated against, or otherwise abused by this bourgeois-value-dominated society. The way that the law directly and indirectly makes homo- and trans-sexuals suffer is grossly unjust. The way the law is enforced — erratically, sometimes brutally, always ignorantly — by the police, is intolerable. It is one of the ugly contradictions of capitalist society that it superficially encourages freedom of belief, behaviour and expression, whereas in reality the blind prejudices of the bourgeois state and its police force are brought brutally to bear on those who disagree with it, e.g. protestors, and on those whose lives have already been made hell because of the society's values e.g. "criminals", mental patients, gays. That is another reason Salient will give prominence to the gays' struggle. While never forgetting that for the gays themselves the issue is one of survival and reasonable enjoyment of life, they are, like it or not, a case study of the unfortunate results of the system we all live in.

In this context I include some criticisms of the 'Gay Liberation Front' — for instance about the way they have distorted language in their name alone. They have devalued the original meaning of 'gay'. They have hopped on the 'Liberation' bandwagon thereby cheapening the name of liberation movements fighting off the shackles of class, race, or imperialism. They are certainly not a 'front' in the same sense as the National Liberation Front in Vietnam, to name one of many.

I suspect that many features of the Gay Liberation Front, like their language, derive from the liberal elements of the United States bourgeoisie. Another Yankee inspired 'political' group — the 'Young Socialists' (which also chose a name and proceeded to devalue its meaning) has had some influence on the GLF and has taken up their cause. Typically, they concentrate on an issue, ignore its cause and lose all sight of wider priorities.

Gays are a product of social relations under capitalism. The chaotic, capitalist mode of production is styled 'free enterprise' but there's nothing free about it. Capitalist enterprises tend to fight for monopoly control, creating some winners but considerably more closers. The education system is no different — few of those who make it through come out unscathed. The sort of social relations produced by the money and private property dominated, unplanned capitalist economy lead to alienation, crime (as defined by those in control), communication failure, and, of course, sexual inhibition and disorientation.

Many gays will probably deny this, but I believe-there is little to recommend 'gayness' as a way of life in any long term sense. I'm by no means saying that gays should hide or suppress their feelings. If you're "gay' well sure, make the best of it and fight repression from the bourgeoisie, but to spread the idea that we're all potentially bisexual and to give the illusion that the gay life is the good life is questionable, to say the least. 'Gay Liberation' will undoubtedly help gays to cope with their problems but will do nothing to remove the causes of 'gayness' and oppression.

Sexual liberation, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is all very well but is not liberation in the real sense of the word — it does nothing to remove the oppression created by the inequalities of control of the means of production. It does nothing to rectify the inequalities in the distribution of wealth or the decision-making in society. There's no class content in Gay Liberation. It is a legitimate, but self-centred and short-sighted 'liberation'.

In a planned, socialist economy, people will undoubtedly enjoy their sexuality but the focus of life is not private sexuality but serving the people and working for mass social improvement. Engels had in mind heterosexual relations when he wrote:

"What we can conjecture at present about the regulation of sex relationships after the impending effacement of capitalist production is, in the main, of a negative character, limited mostly to what will vanish. But what will be added? That will be settled after a new generation has grown up: a generation of men who never in all their lives have had occasion to purchase a woman's surrender either with money or with any other means of social power, and of women who have never been obliged to surrender to any man out of any consideration other than that of real love, or to refrain from giving themselves to their beloved for fear of the economic consequences. Once such people appear, they will not care a rap about what we today think they should do. They will establish their own practice and their own public opinion, conformable therewith, on the practice of each individual — and that's the end of it."