Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights TORY BACK-BENCHER Harry Greenway began his election campaign y announcing his support for the Asylum Bill in his local paper. He also claimed that a Labour government would mirror the policies of the last local Labour council - high rates and money for 'lesbians, gays and other deviant groups' While John Major might not follow Tebbit's 1987 course of stirring up homophobic rejudice against Labour's les ian and gay equality policy local campaigns have no such qualms. Defence of 'the family' assertion of 'traditional values' and attacks on 'deviance' are a central feature of Tory ideoothey know that no Labour lines by publicly coming to the defence of lesbian and gay communities. This has been a regular feature of the thirteen years of Tory rule and, if lesbians and gays had not fought back the situation would have been even State harassment has been continuous. Police victimisation of lesbians and gay men scarcely offsets the occasional gestures by liberal community' police officers. Nor do they offset police inaction in response Yes! I want to become a Socialist Outlook to queerbashing and murders.
Prosecution of the 'Gays the Word bookshop in 1984 has been followed by action against other bookshops and publications. Despite winning the backing of artists and liberals, these causes have failed to generate practical support from the labour movement Appalling silence Where the defendants have been people like the sado-maso Chists sentenced to monstrous prison sentences in 'Operation Spanner - for completely con sensualadult sex - the silence of the labour movement has been appalling Since 1987, the state's attacks ave been upstaged by legisla the gains made by lesbian and gay campaigners seemed to pose a real threat to Tory social order. Moves by some Labour councils to introduce positive images of lesbian and gay sexuality in schools triggered Sec tion 28.
In outlawing the 'promotion of homosexuality teaching of lesbian and gay re lationships 'pretended families' it was the first move which explicitly attacked lesbians through the law. It was also the first legal assault since the 1885 Labouchere amendment criminalised male homosexuality.
Success encouraged the right further in their crusade against the undermining of the family. Section 28 was follewed by atBecome a Socialist Outlook tacking donor insemination - a direct assault on les ians - through clauses in the Human Fertilization and Em bryology Act.
The notion that lesbians and gay men should not be allowed • parent also lay behind the attempt to exclude us from fostering or adopting children with the Paragraph 16 guidelines to the Childrens Act. The right also took this opportunity to strengthen the anti-gay provisions of the Criminal Obscene tabloids Alongside the grim cata ogue of Tory persecution were crisis. When it first became ap parent that AlDS was becoming a serious health threat, and that gay men were the primary sufrers in Britain and the USA, the tabloid press ran what must rank as one of the most obscene ress campaigns that even thir legraded medium could man age.
Gay communities were scapegoated as 'plague-carmediaeval witch-hunting. Thatcher government's re sponse, at the level of a health crisis, was criminally inadequate. Appeals for chastity are not an effective deterrent - but they were cheap!
Only in more recent years, when the real truth about HIV and AIDS translated into serious numbers of heterosexual cases, has there been a slight shift of approach. But the press continues to resurrect the terrifying image of the plague-carrier.
When the 1989 Labour Party 1990s - Tories make first move explicitly attacking lesbians through law A bad example...
By Sam Inman THE FAILURE of the labour movement to act decisively on its new policies and be seen to resist the Tory offensive, has helped create widespread disillusion in che lesbian and gay communities.
If this distrust could lead to self-organisation in order to win the labour movement to firm action it would be positive. Currently it leads to apathy. ultra-loftism or stunt politics not conmass campaign or labour movement it is infuriating in the extreme for lesbian and gay activists within the shout movement to bo constanty told through the media - left and mainstream - that Outragel, and Peter Tatchell in particular. are the only spokespeople for lesbian and gay communities.
Stunts like the recent and much publicised Right to Marry protest orboth active and organised across the labour movement. Trade union lesbian and gay groups began to force unions into better equality policies The miners' strike of 1984-85 was a turning point, providing Janised by Outragel, are ambiguous well-intentoned. Of course lesbians and gay men should have their rela bonships legally recognised. Death of gay men losing their right to a home and can lead to horrific experiences with homophobic families.
But in celebrating an institution that has formed a comerstone of women's oppression for centuries -legally tying women to the family -only serves to further depolticise the An example of this depoliticisation of the polties of serusity was seen on a recent TV phone-in debate about the latest Royal separation. One woman called in to say how, as a lesbian, she thought the prospect of a Royal divorce was 'setting a bad example'. She was laughed at it just shows how you cannot fight heterosexism and homophobia by should take careful note Aside from the national mobilisations, actions were organised in towns and cities which had never seen lesbian and gay protest before. cedented media debate was in