The Real Struggle for Gay Rights Continues

[William Prest]

The apparent acceptance of gay rights with the support of the LGBT Pride events and Pride Society is not based on anything solid or real. It is actually based on economic exploitation, nothing more and nothing less. This point was driven home recently like a coffin nail, when we learned that a struggling and poor gay person was evicted into the streets. The person's worldly possessions were thrown into the garbage for the landfill and where binners could pick through. The petite bourgeois gays in no way supported their unfortunate and poor gay neighbor. There are many cases like this in the gay community and the richer counterparts could not care less by their total lack of action. If they could but see beyond the ends of their noses, they would be able to see that they are also in line for attack. A causal glance at the world news today makes this abundantly clear. There is no excuse in a world brimming with wealth where a gay person (or for that matter, any other person who is poor through no fault of their own) should wind up homeless in the time of year where the inevitable drift to a cold wet winter is upon us. At this time, there are a plethora of condos that are empty because there is no market for them at the exorbitant prices asked and the added HST bite.

There is a divide within the gay community that mirrors the divide in society at large and that is along class lines, i.e., the ruling class versus the working class. Meanwhile, the struggle for gay rights around the world continues. In some parts of the world, one can be hung, shot or burnt alive for being gay. Islam is extremely intolerant and gay people are killed publicly in Iran. In Jamaica, there is a culture of extreme hatred of gay people that is reflected in popular song and open hostility towards the gay lifestyle. Uganda offers long terms in prison or the death penalty in some cases. It is little different in N. America that supposedly has more acceptance (that came from bitter struggle), but the truth is different. How else can we account for situations like what happened to Matthew Sheppard and countless demos on how "God hates fags." The gay community suffers battlefield casualties in the English speaking world. Research and treatment for AIDS was stalled because AIDS was propagandized as God's punishment to homosexuals and therefore should be ignored so God could heap his vengeance upon gay sin. And yet; did not God create all of us if this is what you believe? Some would have you believe that the devil, Satan, created gay people and almost in the same breath; dinosaur bones, to confuse humanity away from God; getting them to believe in evolution and that homosexuality is not a sin condemned by a death sentence. There are real reasons behind all of this, which will be explained, but first a recall of what the initial struggles were all about.

Gay rights are not about special privileges for homosexuals as bigots and anti-gay bigots will tell you repeatedly. Gay rights ARE about basic human rights such as granted to those seeking political asylum or to blacks, women, immigrants and the poor. It is about access to rights granted under various constitutions and Bills of Rights. It is about equal access to housing, social services, legal assistance, financial services, medical care, work, voting, etc. without recrimination, coercion, denial and prejudice. Gay people in various gay rights movements from the Mattachine Society, to Stonewall, to GATE, GAA and a host of other movements in history were not seeking special privileges such as those possessed by royalty and the church granted a generous fully paid support and tax free for life. Gays were only seeking integration into society that others struggled for and achieved in the past. Some gay people allied with Socialists and Communists in order to achieve the impossible under capitalism. After all, Vladimir Lenin legalized homosexuality in the fledgling USSR in 1917; something that was not seen on the books in any capitalist country until more than half a century later. Unfortunately, the gains made later were subject to interpretation and abuse. By and large, most gay people are still in the same boat as they were pre-June 1969 at Stonewall or even pre-Leninist rules in 1917!. The poor gay person and the working gay must still lurk furtively in a hidden world of shadows because of open bigotry inspired by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Tim Haggard and many others. Despite emerging knowledge on the AIDS catastrophe, gay people are still blamed for the whole plague. That point was driven home recently in September of 2010 in Uganda. AIDS is a disease that ravages the third world more than any other population being especially prevalent in Africa. It is a retrovirus and not a life style. Africans should know as AIDS is ravishing the whole community and not just the LGBT community.

[William Prest]

Note, in the case of Uganda, under the guidance of US evangelical missionaries, it is now a death sentence by government decree if you are identified as being gay. This change has been back and forth and has recently been made law. Thus, gay rights as human rights are far from being accomplished.

[William Prest]

Consider this piece frin the Workers' Vanguard concerning the LGBT SF sell out to the corporate agenda and the unwillingness to stand up for human rights.

http://www.spartacist.org/english/wv/1026/sf.html