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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 44 No. 14. July 6 1981

Gays Pledge to Fight Springbok Tour

Gays Pledge to Fight Springbok Tour

Gays see we have a responsibility to fight for our Black brothers and sisters because they are discriminated against on the grounds of colour.

On the last anti-tour march on May 1st there was a large group of vocal gays and lesbians who, in many cases, lead the chanting and suffered the brunts of confrontation from inebriated rugby fanatics who taunted us from the sidelines.

Gay Oppression in South Africa

But we are not fighting just for an end to apartheid, but on two fronts. The second is closest to us. Reports have been received from Pretoria of persecution of "gay activists". A leader of the Dutch Reformed Church which is responsible for the ideological basis of apartheid, Eddit van Zyl, has stated that gay groups have no right to exist, and has recommended that the government exterminate them.

This position is not so far removed from the New Zealand government's stand on homosexuality which, it was stated recently at the National Gay Rights Conference, was a veiled form of fascism. At the same conference, a remit was passed condemning the tour - and encouraging gays to take a stand against it.