The silent

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A minority - but an extremely large minority say workers, in that it tories, are easy targets gay worker, however, the implications of such a minor coviction may extend to job loss and beyond. Employees of the Department of Education and Science, for example, may be blacklisted on the official List 99' and, especially at a time of high unemployment, never be able to re-enter their profession. And all because of totally unfounded beliefs about their sexuality.

Message

The message for gay workers is clear. They are a danger to society, they corrupt young people, they are ill or abnormal and, more fundamentally, although it is rarely considered, let alone verbalised, they are a threat to the existence of the family unit on which the wealth of capitalism relies.

It is time for gay workers to "come out' in their masses and force society's acceptance of homosexuality as an • alternative rather than a deviance.

Victimisation

Unfortunately, the disincentives are becoming stronger every day.

public admission could result in victimisation from employers and feliow workers, or, what is worse, yet completely legal, the sack.

The Labour Movement must take up this challenge. This means that in every Trade Union, at every level and in every Labour Party Branch the issues must be raised - and not just by gay workers.

What are you doing? and Tony Brockman SOME BLACK primary school children, when asked to draw a picture of themselves, will produce a figure with a white face. So strong is the pressure of racialism that they deny their own skin colour. With another minority in this society, the process of self-negation is more dramatic. The members of that minority will try, painfully, throughout their lives, to appear 'normal' And not without cause. Otherwise they may risk imprisonment, electric shock treatment from 'helpful' psychiatrists, los102 ; their jobs or houses, having their children taken away from them, or being beaten up.

This is the homosexual minority. It is a very large minority, far larger than many people think.

According to surveys conducted in the USA by Kinsey, 4% of men were exclusively homosexual, 10% had been so for three years or more. 19% of men aged 20 years were bisexual or predominantly homosexual. 37% of men had had some homosexual experience going as far as orgasm.

About four per cent of women were exclusively homosexual from the age of 20 to 35, and 13% had had some homosexual experience to orgasm.

The socialist attitude on gay rights should surely be that people's individual sexual preferences are a purely private matter, and the state lor employers, or education authorities, or doctors) have no right to interfere. "Everyone", as Marx put it, "should be able to attend to his bodily needs without the police sticking their noses in".

It is simple enough. Yet all the existing "socialist' states oppress homosexuals to one degree or another. And in the writings of Engels we can find reactionary sentiments on the question of homosexuality.

The 1967 Act which legalised homosexuality between 'consenting adults in private' (in England and Wales) lays down an age of consent of 21 (instead of 16 for heterosexuals) - and there have been cases of up to 18 months' jail for sleeping with 'under-age' men.

'Soliciting', holding hands in public, etc. can be prosecuted under common law. In Stockport police have drilled holes specially in the walls of public lavatories so that they can arrest gays for 'gross indecency'.

What are the prejudices which back up the reactionary attitudes to homosexuals?

• 'Homosexuality unnatural biologically'.

At best, this argument is just about on the level of 'if God meant us to fly, he would have given US wings' Obviously all civilisation is 'unnatural' — but are we against civilisation? A certain amount of heterosexual activity is - or, at least, until very recently has been - 'natural' in the sense of being necessary for the continuation of the species. But that doesn't mean that homosexuality is unnatural.

Two anthropologists survey 76 primitive societies about which information was available. In 49 of them homosexuality was considered normal.

D.J.West, a writer who describes homosexuality as a 'perversion', , 'deviation' and so on, nonetheless writes in his book on the subject: "Exclusive preference for the opposite sex is an acquired trait, and inent and aggressive childmolesting is almost exclusively heterosexual.

Nearly all socialists would feel ashamed to come out with obviously prejudiced remarks about gay people. Yet the prejudice is often there, covered over.

•The most common reaction of comrades who have discovered that 1 am gay has been one, not so much of hostility as of embarrassment mingled with an uneasy tolerance. 'Yes, of course, you're oppressed and we sympathise but really the best thing to do is to work for the overthrow of capitalism' ... No doubt if such comrades encountered an obscure minority like one-legged green men from the Cayman Islands, they would say something similar" (Bob Cant in 'Gay Marxist' no.2).

But homosexuals are far from being an obscure and irrelevant minority. Of around 25 million working men and women in Britain, something like two and a half million must be more or less active homosexuals.

The sort of pressures involved are indicated by this statement from a gay mechanic in a Coventry factory:

"All the time I have to pretend to be what I'm not.

i have to make up girl friends that don't exist and even tell anti-queer jokes.

Sometimes the strain gets unbearable". • Quoted in 'Gay Marxist' no.1).

Will this worker come to the forefront as a militant - or will his embarrassment make him try to stick timidly to private life? If he were to join a socialist organisation, would he be able to work harmoniously there; or would he feel a constant strain?

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GAY AWAR GROU