Forty-two years ago -- right around the time I was being forced out of the Socialist Workers Party's youth group -- the party announced a new public policy on the gay liberation movement. This change had a connection to my personal experience with the group's attempt to brainwash me but, owing to my overreliance at the time on the party's press for political information, it's a connection I wasn't aware of. I plan to write about that shortly.
At a public meeting May 11, 1979 at which the party was going to explain its new policy, gay rights activist and former SWP member David Thorstad, who'd resigned earlier over an internal memorandum of which this new policy was an extension, composed a leaflet and passed it out to those attending, who represented a broad cross-section of local activists. It was subsequently expanded into the article below. You can also read it at "The Socialist Workers Party vs. Gay Liberation (or The Cuckoo Builds a Strange Nest)" - William A. Percy (williamapercy.com)
Thorstad introduced it this way in a 2009 introduction:
This
polemic was written in the heat of struggle, at a time when both left groups
and the gay movement were in a different place from where they are today. The
left has virtually vanished as a force in American society, and the gay
movement has abandoned sexual freedom as a goal in favor of conventional and
conservative assimilation into hetero society. The very concept of posing a
challenge to heterodominance seems rather quaint nowadays in view of the widespread
focus among same-sexers on conventionality and patriotism — the embrace of same-sex
marriage, efforts to get into the imperialist military to do Wall Street’s
dirty work against third-world countries like Iraq and Afghanistan — and
support for thoughtcrimes legislation (hate-crimes laws). The gay movement no
longer plays the radical role for social change that it still played in the
late 1970s, and consequently, this polemic serves as a snapshot of a moment
that has passed.
Since
the late nineteenth century, when homosexuals took their first steps toward
self-definition and organization, an exchange of views and even a certain
amount of mutual interaction and support have characterized their relationship
to the labor movement and the socialist movement. At times, especially during
the 1890s and the first decades of the twentieth century, they have won
outspoken backing for their demands from the left — socialist, communist, and
anarchist. At other times, as during the Stalinist terror of the 1930s and
under the Castro regime in Cuba, they have fallen victim to reactionary policies
as severe as any in capitalist countries.
With
the rise of the present wave of gay liberation, unleashed by the Stonewall
Rebellion of 1969, a new and more far-reaching debate than ever before has been
going on within left-wing organizations throughout the world about the significance
of gay liberation, the nature of sexuality and homosexuality, and the
relationship between the struggle for sexual freedom and the struggle of the
working class to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a more civilized,
rational, and humane social arrangement — socialism. This is a debate in which
homosexual revolutionists have been playing a central role. It is a debate that
on one level is no different from the debate on homosexuality and gay
liberation that is going on in the rest of society — in religion, the
scientific community, and many other institutions—and it is creating just as
much turmoil.
The
debate within the left, however, differs in a number of respects from these
other manifestations of the increased awareness of homosexuality and its social
implications. First of all, the left in North America carries far less weight
in the body politic than it does in many other areas of the world. Therefore,
many people, including many gay activists, are only vaguely
aware of the scope and nature of this debate. Second, many left groups refuse
to discuss this question openly, before the gay movement and the working class
as a whole, preferring instead to restrict it to their own memberships, and to
put their best face forward in the gay movement itself. Third, the left shares
with gay liberation, as well as with other movements of the oppressed, a vision
of a better society. It shares a need to ruthlessly criticize the status quo.
And it generally promises a future social order of freedom for the exploited
and the oppressed. Put another way, the left promises more, so it is not
unreasonable to expect more from it than one might from liberal capitalist
politicians whose primary devotion is to maintaining a political, social, and
economic system based on inequality and profits for the few, rather than on
freedom for the vast majority.
The
debate within the left has been uneven. Although it is making inroads in
virtually all left-wing groups — Maoist, Stalinist, anarchist,
Social-Democratic, and Trotskyist — it has been most extensive, and has made
the greatest progress, in Trotskyist groups. Of these, by far the most
important debate has taken place inside the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), where
repeated discussions and struggle have occurred since 1970, when the party
abandoned its policy of banning homosexuals from membership.[1]
The
SWP is a small and generally uninfluential American organization, with close
ties to Trotskyist groups in dozens of countries. It is, next to the Communist
Party, probably the most important left-wing group in the United States.[2] It
is also one of only a few left-wing groups to have actively, though
inconsistently, participated in the gay liberation movement since the early
1970s. In general, its involvement in gay liberation has been most evident in
New York City and California.
Even
there, however, it only really got involved in any significant way following
the Dade County defeat in June 1977. It, like some other left-wing groups, was
compelled by the massive upsurge of the lesbian and gay movement that Anita Bryant
provoked to reassess its abstentionist position and to dip its toes, however
gingerly, into the struggle.
It
did so, however, with a rather limited grasp of what the struggle for gay
liberation is all about. It supports equal rights for (adult) homosexuals
before the law, but at the same time it regards gay liberation as “peripheral”
to the class struggle — that is, not as important as other layers of American
society (such as the labor movement, women, and Blacks and other racial minorities).
In fact, its position — which it has never fully made public in its own press —
differs little from that of bourgeois liberals who oppose discrimination, but
who regard homosexuality as an exotic deviation from the heterosexual norm that
affects only a minority of people. Like any other institution in this society,
it too has internalized antihomosexual prejudice fostered by the bourgeois
ruling class — though it officially condemns such prejudice. It continues to
suspend judgment on whether homosexual behavior is just as “natural” as
heterosexual behavior, on whether homosexuality is a potential of the human
animal or an aberration of class society, and seems particularly averse to
solidarizing itself with the notion that Gay Is Good. And, like most leftist
groups, it sees the struggle against capitalism, and all the forms of
oppression and discrimination that go with it, through glasses colored by the
political “line” it has adopted at any given moment.
The
SWP “Comes Out” — A Bit
As
the 1970s draw to a close, the SWP has finally decided to make public part of
its true position on the struggle for gay liberation. This has taken the form
of a two-page article in the April 13, 1979, issue of its weekly newspaper, The
Militant.
The
article, which appeared under the byline of Rich Finkel and Matilde Zimmermann,
was entitled “The class-struggle road to winning gay rights.”
The article has created a stir and
considerable confusion among many gay liberationists, and no doubt among some members
of the SWP itself. It is bound to have repercussions within the left as a
whole, both within the United States and in other countries. For this reason,
it calls for a response and an explanation.
There
is another reason for answering it. And that is the fact that today, more than
ever, the gay liberation movement is looking for answers, is attempting to
develop a strategy for liberation, and this has led more sisters and brothers
than ever before to consider socialism as an alternative to the repression,
antisexuality, oppression, and exploitation of capitalist society. Today more
than ever, people are becoming aware that the horse-and-buggy morality of
American society is completely out of kilter with the needs and realities of
the space age. At a time when our most vociferous opponents are clinging for
dear life to this antiquated moral code, homosexuals are beginning to realize
that we are part of a historic process of redefining traditional religious and
moral values that belong to social orders that have long since disappeared. We
do not know yet what the new order will bring, but we can say with certainty
that its emergence is already beginning to sweep away the old crap. We should
be glad to be a part of this historic process.
The
Finkel/Zimmermann article is what is known as a “line” article. That is, although
it is signed by individuals, it really represents a policy statement, publicly
binding on all other members of the group. This in itself is interesting
because the article appeared like a bolt from the blue, takes positions that
are antithetical to Marxism, and at least in part appears to have been
determined by leading bodies of the SWP rather than by the membership as a
whole. To the extent that this is the case, it can be expected to provoke some
consternation inside the SWP, which prides itself on being a democratic organization
in which the party line on any major issue is elaborated only after thorough
internal debate. The fact that a line article, which on the surface at least
appears to deviate from the previously touted line on gay liberation, is being
handed down from the top, without prior internal discussion, raises some
serious questions about how democratic the SWP really is. It also suggests that
there is more going on here than at first meets the eye.
Such
an article is different from a trial balloon. Rather than testing the terrain
or announcing the beginning of a discussion on a strategy for gay liberation
within the SWP, it appears designed to whip the membership into line before
such a discussion can even begin. In this connection, its timing can hardly be
accidental. For 1979 is a convention year for the SWP, and its preconvention
discussion—a three-month period during which members may submit documents on
any subject for publication in an internal discussion bulletin — begins in May.
So, in a sense, the Finkel/Zimmermann piece signals a decision by the party
leadership to go public, so to speak, even before the ranks have had a chance
to get involved.
Why
such a bureaucratic maneuver should have been felt necessary is anyone’s guess.
So is the extent to which the article may have poisoned the atmosphere inside
the SWP and rendered a democratic discussion more difficult, if not impossible.
But there is little question that it has helped to poison relations inside the
gay movement, particularly in areas like New York where gay activists have been
working together with members of the SWP for goals that were thought to be
shared.
What
Did The Article Say?
The
ostensible setting for the article was an analysis of the Philadelphia
conference February 23–25 which called a lesbian/gay rights march on
Washington, D.C., for October 14, 1979. It took the Militant more than one
month even to report on this important conference. This in itself was unusual,
particularly since the SWP had a half dozen people at the conference. At least
one of its members strongly argued from the floor in favor of the march. One of
its lesbian members was even elected co-chair of the proceedings. And the SWP
has a well-deserved reputation for supporting mass marches by any oppressed
group.
Finkel/Zimmermann
devote a few introductory paragraphs to summarizing the debate at the
conference over whether or not a march by the gay movement should be called.
They spend the remaining one-and-three-quarters pages laying the groundwork for
opposing the march and belittling efforts of the lesbian and gay movement to
develop a national focus and plan of action. What are their arguments? They
correctly point to the fact that the capitalist ruling class is on a campaign
to cut back on the social, economic, and political rights of the working class,
to weaken the unions, and to erode the democratic rights of the masses of the
American people. These attacks are “aimed at establishing an atmosphere of
greater conformity and weakening the self-confidence of all oppressed or
exploited persons. The antidemocratic assault must include attacks on personal
freedoms that do not directly stand in the way of the employers satisfying
their profit hunger. Attacks on gay rights fall into this category.” Nothing to
quibble about here.
Nor
are our authors wrong to claim, “Anything that succeeds in blocking this
capitalist offensive strikes a blow for the democratic rights of all.” They
list as examples a whole series of victories — the 1978 miners’ strike, the
Iranian revolution, the ERA deadline extension, the defeat of an antilabor
referendum in Missouri. These events are correctly described as “big advances
for the gay rights struggle.”[3]
Nowhere,
however, do we see here even lip service given to the massive mobilizations of
gay people themselves in 1977 and 1978 in response to the mounting assaults on
our rights and our very existence. But our mobilizations, in which hundreds of
thousands participated, were the largest mobilizations by any oppressed
grouping in American society for many years, and the biggest demonstrations of
any kind since the anti-Vietnam War movement. In some areas of the country,
such as in the South, gay demonstrations were bigger than any demonstration of
any kind in history — including by the labor movement and the antiwar movement.
A
year and a half ago, the SWP took a more accurate and realistic view and
recognized that the fact that gay people themselves stood up by the hundreds of
thousands and said “Enough!” to bigotry and persecution was an inspiration and
a victory not only for gay people, but for the entire working class. In a
report to the SWP convention in August 1977, SWP national secretary Jack Barnes
pointed to the fact that the gay mobilizations had prompted a mineworkers’
official to get up at a meeting of 200 officials in Kentucky to argue in favor
of a march on Washington by mineworkers by saying, “If the homosexuals in this
country can get recognition, so can the coal miners.” (Militant, September 16,
1977). But today the SWP’s
line has changed, as Finkel/Zimmermann proceed to make clear.
Gay
Liberation Gets Cellar Priority
After
pointing out the potential power of the labor movement, and its crucial role in
the economy and society, as well as its importance for a revolutionary strategy
whose aim is to overthrow capitalism, they warn their members and whatever unionists
may read their paper that “the unions should not throw the same resources into
the defense of gay rights that they must throw into the defense of women’s
rights and Black or Latino rights.” They offer as a strategy for gay
liberation, as well as for women and Blacks, one “that includes doing
everything possible to strengthen and protect the working class. . .”
They seem to be suggesting that gays are not in fact in their majority
themselves workers, and that the only road for gay liberation is to join the
unions and/or focus on working in the labor movement — which they have just
advised not to put much energy into fighting for gay rights. To me, this sounds
like advice to lesbian and gay activists to stop fighting their own battles, to
stop building an independent movement that fights for us, even if no other
group in society is willing to do so. Such an approach would be suicidal.
Let
me be clear. I believe the lesbian/gay movement must do much more than it has
so far to win the labor movement, as well as other oppressed layers of society,
to support our just demands for an end to persecution and for freedom. But we
can only do this by continuing to build our own movement, independent of any
outside force, and under our own control. This is an elementary lesson that we
should have learned from the history of the Black and women’s movements, the
antiwar movement, as well as from the labor movement itself. This also used to
be the view of the SWP — before it made what it calls a “turn to the industrial
working class” a year or so ago.
It is
revealing in this regard that three photographs accompany the Finkel/Zimmermann
piece. The first, and largest, is of a West Virginia miners’ rally during the
1978 coal strike. (To me, they all look like white males.) The second, about
half as large, is of the ERA march in Washington July 9, 1978. The caption
credits the turnout to the assertion that the participants were “bolstered by
[the] miners’ battle.” The third photo, also smaller, and at the bottom of the
second page, shows two gay men carrying a sign urging: “Jimmy: Human Rights for
All Americans.” Wouldn’t a photo of one of the many mass mobilizations for gay
rights have been more appropriate? In a paper like the Militant, the selection
and placing of illustrations is not haphazard. The message is clear: gay
liberation is a distinctly peripheral aspect of the class struggle, one which
needs to look elsewhere for validation, one which neither the socialist nor the
labor movement should do much to advance. Such an assessment is not only out of
line with reality; it also suggests a hostility to gay liberation itself.
Is
Sexuality Irrelevant?
Finkel/Zimmermann
sneer at what they call “the so-called gay movement defined by sexuality.” Is
sexuality, then, irrelevant to the struggle for lesbian/gay liberation? Is it
irrelevant to our oppression in a heterosexist society? Is it a mere side issue
for a party that aspires to lead a revolution and usher in a new social order?
Is it no longer true that the moral code and behavioral norms of this society
are based on an active and ubiquitous proselytizing to exclusive
heterosexuality?
Are
lesbians and gay men preventing hordes of straight people from supporting our
just struggle because we are open and proud about being queer? Are gay people
wrong to be fighting to protect their rights to live their lives as they see
fit, to defend a sexuality that they cherish as a gift? Would there even be a
gay liberation movement at all were it not for the fact that
homosexuals themselves stood up to fight back against centuries of oppression —
at the very time, incidentally, that the SWP itself was banning homosexuals
from membership? Considering the SWP’s own record, the Finkel/Zimmermann sneer
will not be quickly forgotten by proud faggots and dykes. Nor should it be.
Moreover, it is an observation that suggests an underlying hatred of queers;
and coming from a socialist group, it is the kind of remark that gives
socialism a bad name.
Furthermore,
it is still not possible to imagine the Militant expressing similar contempt
for other movements of the oppressed. What would Blacks think, for example, if
they were to read in its pages a reference to the “so-called Black movement
defined by race”? Or women if they were to see their movement described as the
“so-called women’s movement defined
by sex”? Where does the SWP think such movements come from anyway? They
certainly do not sprout full-blown from the labor movement the SWP has so
recently discovered.
For
Finkel/Zimmermann, this “so-called gay movement defined by sexuality” appears
to include only people they do not like. It includes “bar and bath owners who
profit from the exploitation and isolation of lesbians and gays.” It includes
“real or
aspirant ruling-class politicians.” It includes “gay preachers whose religious
role is not a bit less reactionary than that of more orthodox clergy.” It
includes “individuals who insist that living a certain ‘lifestyle’ is the road
to victory in the fight for gay rights.” Now this is truly something new! It is
not often that the SWP rails against bar and bath owners, and one almost
never reads in its press criticism of religion. Certainly, it is not in the
habit of attacking the Black or women’s movements for such undesirable
elements, which they have in far greater quantity than does the gay movement. I
cannot recall ever reading a criticism in the Militant of the phenomenon of
women’s banks. And surely there are far more Black capitalist
politicians and preachers than there are gay ones — at least who are involved in
the “so-called gay movement defined by sexuality.” The same could be said of
the labor movement itself, whose leadership contains numerous unsavory characters.
To judge from this nonsense, Finkel/ Zimmermann, and the SWP leaders who helped
them write their diatribe, have never seen a gay worker, and never hope to see
one, but they can tell you anyhow, they’d rather see than be one.
Covering
Up an About-Face
But
our authors have only been warming up. Now they are ready for their pièce de
résistance. Supporters of a gay march on Washington, they moan, “did not even
consider the broader framework in which their deliberations at the Philadelphia
conference occurred. They failed to weigh thoroughly the political import of
their demands, downplayed the narrow representation at the conference, and
underestimated the forces lined up against the action.” Marching, which the SWP
has strongly favored for more than a decade at least, is now demoted to a
“tactic,” and in this case a “tactic” that the SWP wishes had been scrapped.
Fine. They have a right to their opinion. But why don’t they explain why none
of their own people at the Philadelphia conference took the floor to argue
against the march? Or why none of them stood up to enlighten the benighted
delegates about the “broader framework” they now say should have been
discussed? To judge from their article, you would think they had not participated
at all, but were there merely as observers. Why, then, did they allow their members
to speak in favor of the march? Why did they allow one of them to be nominated
by the women’s caucus to chair the conference? Why do they fail to report their
participation in their article? Furthermore, why did they, as a member group of
the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights, not object to the CLGR position paper
distributed at the conference — a position paper for which they voted? Why did
they wait until now to snipe at and undermine the call for a march on Washington,
since they supported the idea before? Or did they mislead the Coalition into
believing that they supported the march? Are they themselves now making common
cause with the “forces lined up against the action”? Do they intend to support
the march or not? If so, why are they actively campaigning against the march by
urging other groups, like the National Organization for Women, not to endorse
it? And what is the significance, if any, of the fact that one of the two authors
was not even present at the conference? Isn’t this a bizarre form of
reportage?[4] Finkel/Zimmermann provide no answers to these questions. But
their lengthy delay in reporting on the conference, and the hostile nature of
their “report,” may offer some clues.
The
SWP, as well as other Trotskyist groups (in Canada, for instance), are now busy
reorienting their members to take jobs in heavy industry. This no doubt worthy
endeavor undoubtedly creates considerable difficulties for them, both on a
personal and a political level. It is in light of this reallocation of their
somewhat limited forces that the Finkel/Zimmermann piece must be seen.
Official
Position on Gay Liberation
The
SWP’s official position on the gay liberation movement was adopted in August
1973. It is called a “Memorandum on the Gay Liberation Movement.” This
document, which was approved by a majority of its convention, contains a key
section in which gay liberation is characterized as relating to a “relatively
narrow sector of the population,” as lacking the “potential mass” and “social
weight” of movements for women’s and Black liberation, and as “much more
peripheral to the central issues of the class struggle” than those movements.
It argues that it would be a mistake for the SWP to “generally assign comrades
to this movement.” No point in wasting time on “peripheral” movements. The
lesbian/gay upsurge following Dade County made such an abstentionist policy
untenable for the SWP. Hence, it began to get involved, on a limited scale, in
the gay movement in a few areas. But this involvement, such as it was, now
appears to have outlived its usefulness. In fact, it may be getting in the way
of more important things, like getting jobs in steel plants. Therefore, the party
seems to be casting about for an excuse for pulling out of the gay movement — but
it has to do so in such a way that it seems justified to its membership.
It is
in this context that the report by SWP national secretary Jack Barnes to the
SWP National Committee last December must be seen. In that report, published in
the March 16, 1979, issue of the Militant, Barnes goes to great lengths to
explain why the Briggs Initiative in California was defeated. Twice he warns
the SWP membership not to “overestimate the weight of the gay movement” in
defeating this antigay initiative. (Were some SWP members beginning to question
the “Memorandum's" characterization of the gay movement as “peripheral” and
nearly weightless?) He warns against pointing too much to the opposition of the
labor movement, which was genuine and widespread, in helping to defeat Briggs.
The ruling class itself, he suggests, played a key role in the defeat. But
would Briggs have been defeated if the gay movement itself had not responded
with massive mobilizations against it, if it had not reached out to the labor
movement to enlist its support? Possibly, but not likely. Still, the whole
thrust of Barnes’ analysis leads to a denigrating of the self-mobilization and
struggle of homosexuals themselves. To be wrong on the character and scope of
the forces in the fight against Briggs, he says, “could lead us to a false
estimate of the state of the class struggle, the current tactics of the ruling
class, an overestimate of the strength of the gay rights movement, and cause us
to veer away from the correct strategic line of march for labor and our party.”
That
“line of march” now appears to be straight out of the gay movement.
Anticommunists in the gay movement will rejoice at this prospect, no doubt. But
for socialists, for people who recognize that the ultimate goals of the gay
movement, as well as of all the oppressed and of the working class, lie in the
overturning of capitalism and its heterosexist dictatorship, such a retreat can
only be interpreted as a betrayal of the struggle for sexual freedom and
socialism.
A
further clue to the SWP’s current behavior might be found in another passage of
its 1973 “Memorandum,” which is still the party’s official line on gay
liberation. This passage refused to “take a stand on the nature or value of
homosexuality,” and suggested that to do so — that is, to recognize what
science has already proved, namely, that homosexual behavior is a natural form
of human sexuality — might jeopardize the effectiveness of the party as a
political organization and alienate it from the masses (who, as we all know,
hate queers). To take such a stand, it argued, “would cut across its purpose,
dilute its nature as a political organization, transform it into an
organization advancing one or another scientific or cultural viewpoint, narrow
its appeal, and cripple its ability to mobilize the masses on political
questions.”
These
are strong words. They suggest that the gay liberation movement is inherently
apolitical, little more than an exotic sideshow playing itself out on the
fringes of society. Were the massive mobilizations of gay people during the
past two years, then, not political? Just the opposite. They were extremely
effective in thwarting our enemies and in extending the influence of gay
liberation in American society. They inspired other layers of the oppressed and
exploited to fight back. And they occurred in spite of the fact that the SWP
believes gay liberation to be inherently “countercultural,” riddled with
“lifestylism,” and “peripheral” to the class struggle. How far out of it can
you get?
The
SWP’s unscientific, un-Marxist view of gay liberation and sexual liberation is
what it is now counterposing to its “turn to the working class.” It has long
berated the gay movement for not having a national focus. Now that the movement
is beginning to develop one, now that it has an opportunity to move onto the
national scene with a march on the nation’s capital, does the SWP respond by
encouraging this process? Oh, no. It is reluctant to go a step further. It
seeks to force the realities of the class struggle to fit its own political
line, rather than the other way around. It behaves as though the gay movement
were in conflict with its “turn” toward the labor movement. It seeks refuge in
its wretched “Memorandum” and its belief that gay liberation is, after all,
really not “political.” It is doing what a revolutionary party should never do —
it is pitting itself against a movement of the oppressed. Any party that does
not champion the rights and demands of all the oppressed does not deserve to
call itself a revolutionary party. Can a witch hunt against whatever proud
lesbian and gay members it may still have left in the SWP be far behind?
The
Sexual Rights of Young People
It is
entirely possible that some members of the SWP may not be impressed with the
arguments against the gay movement and the march on Washington that
Finkel/Zimmermann have concocted. It is for their benefit, no doubt, that our
authors pounce on an issue about which not only they, but most of their readers
as well, are profoundly ignorant. This is the issue of cross-generational sex,
an issue that is currently being widely discussed and debated within the
lesbian/gay movement.
This
issue arose at the Philadelphia conference when the Gay Youth caucus introduced
a demand for “full rights for gay youth, including revision of the
age-of-consent laws.” This motion was passed, but was subsequently replaced,
following a poll of the delegates by mail, with another demand which read:
“Protect lesbian and gay youth from any laws which are used to discriminate
against, oppress, and/or harass them in their homes, schools, jobs, and social
environments.” (Finkel/Zimmermann rewrote this demand in their report to omit
the word “jobs,” though it is not clear why.) This substitute demand was
proposed because of strong objections from the women’s caucus, which did not
agree with the idea of altering the age-of-consent laws. I myself, let it be
said, voted against this substitute because I am in favor of full rights for
gay youth, including their right to have sex with whomever they want. As a
non-ageist radical, I also favor a repeal of the age-of-consent laws, which
punish consensual sexual acts between an older and a younger person. These
reactionary laws protect nobody, and in fact cause great suffering to large
numbers of young people and adults. I believe that both the gay and socialist movements
should get in step with Freud and Kinsey and recognize that children have an
active sexuality.
In my
opinion, sexual freedom remains a distant dream so long as the state and the
church are allowed to impose their sex-negative morality on young people, as
well as adults. In my view, it is unscientific, as well as damaging to millions
of young people, for the gay and women’s movements, not to mention the
socialist movement, to kowtow to the bourgeois notion that sexual rights should
be the prerogative only of adults, preferably heterosexual adults. I myself,
and just about every male homosexual I know, have suffered greatly as children
from this irrational and reactionary legal repression of sexuality.
Many
gay movements in other countries have recognized this, and call for a repeal of
the age-of-consent laws. The American gay movement is out of step with them,
and with scientific knowledge about sexuality, so long as it refuses to support
full rights for gay youth. This is my personal and political conviction, and I
intend to continue to express it. But I recognize that the American lesbian/gay
movement needs considerably more discussion on this subject before it is in a
position to bring its horizons into line with reality.
Socialists
tend to be ahead of other people in recognizing the importance of child
sexuality, and in stripping their approach to such matters of all religious and
reactionary moralizing. To my knowledge, the SWP has never had a discussion of
the question of cross-generational sex. But that does not prevent
Finkel/Zimmermann from jumping into the fray with both feet and no head. They
devote two columns to a delirious and absurd discussion of the subject, as well
as to a personal attack on me for having publicly expressed my views on it. Not
only do they blow the whole issue all out of proportion, but they completely
distort it as well. The repeal of age-of-consent laws is a reactionary demand,
they assert, “even though its supporters try to pass themselves off as
defenders of adolescents against legal victimization.” This may be news to some
of the SWP’s co-thinkers in other countries, such as Australia, who are
officially on record as favoring the repeal of age-of-consent laws. Certainly,
it makes a mockery of the very real oppression that many men and boys face when
they are caught up in the labyrinth of the law for their purely consensual and
loving relationships. I know personally of such people, some of whose lives are
ruined as a result. I have seen teenage boys dragged into Family Court and
harassed by the authorities for sexual relationships they sought out and
willingly, nay joyfully, engaged in with men. I am convinced that the
“treatment” for such offenses against morality is far worse than the “crime.”
Moreover, it is similar to the suffering of adult homosexuals caught up in the
same heterosexist legal system. How do you “protect” a young person by putting
his older lover in jail and hauling the boy into Family Court, or worse? Laws
that punish sexual acts freely engaged in should be discarded as relics of
human prehistory. This is the only humane and civilized solution to a very real
and widespread problem.
Finkel/Zimmermann,
however, not only come out against the progressive demand to repeal or revise
such laws, they also resort to slander to make their reactionary case. Those
who advocate the repeal of such laws, they claim, “are primarily adult men who
believe they should be unrestricted in having sex with children.” (Why not just
call them monsters?) Advocating such legal reform, they say, is
“anti-working-class, anti-child.” It has “nothing to do with gay rights or
human rights of any kind. It has no place in the struggle to end discrimination
against lesbians and gay people.” And black is white, and white is black. How
long will it be before Finkel/Zimmermann tell us that the earth is really flat?
They
don’t go quite that far yet, but they do drag in a most original, but
ridiculous, argument to bolster their flimsy case:
“Saying
that children have the ‘right’ to ‘consent’ to sex with adults is exactly like
saying children should be able to ‘consent’ to work in a garment factory twelve
hours a day.” To me, these are in reality quite different matters. Sex is fun.
Sex
is play. Sex is not work. And sex hardly resembles working in a garment factory
for five minutes, let alone twelve hours. If this is an example of the SWP’s
use of dialectical logic, or even formal logic, it is safe to say that the SWP
is in serious trouble. After all, things are not always their opposite. Maybe
our authors are simply trying to impress their readers with their formidable
grasp of labor history. I, for one, can think of nothing more irrelevant to the
subject of consensual cross-generational sex than working in a garment factory.
I do hope the Militant will spare its readers such foolishness in the future.
Finkel/Zimmermann
also show that they have learned well the guilt-by-association method perfected
by the ignominious Joseph McCarthy of 1950s witch hunt fame. “Some of
Thorstad’s associates,” they assert, “argue that, at least for male youngsters,
prostitution can be a freely chosen and fulfilling ‘lifestyle.’” Who are these
unnamed “associates”? Whoever they might be, they do not speak for me, for my
view of prostitution, as well as that of all boy-lovers I know, is just the opposite.
It is true that many boys in American society turn to prostitution, usually out
of poverty, or because they can’t get jobs, or because they regard it as one of
the ways they know about to meet men. But I can’t think of a single boy-lover
who argues in favor of prostitution as a “fulfilling lifestyle.” I know several
who consider themselves oppressed by the prostitution to which this society has
driven some of their young male friends.
But
isn’t this a strange argument to read in a socialist newspaper? After all, the
women’s movement has made far more of an issue out of prostitution than
pederasts have. It has even organized demonstrations in support of female
prostitutes, and some prostitutes have been involved in the women’s movement. Yet
the SWP has never chosen to attack or disassociate itself from the women’s
movement on these grounds.
One
of the SWP’s gay minions, Michael Maggi, even brought a motion to the CLGR on
March 27 which stated that “adults having sex with children is exploitation and
is the antithesis of the fight for lesbian and gay rights.” But this is not a
true statement. Adults having sex with children may or may not be exploitative,
just as adults having sex with adults may or may not be exploitative. These
things must be determined on an individual basis. In many cases, adults having
sex with children, or children having sex with adults, is just the opposite of exploitation.
But this may all be too complicated for our pseudo-dialecticians to understand.
It is
interesting to note, though, that this party, which takes a hysterical stand
against homosexuality between men and boys, is the same party that refuses to
“take a stand” on the “nature or value” of homosexuality. No longer does it
merely pooh-pooh the concept that Gay Is Good; today it is saying that in cases
involving young people Gay Is Bad.
Here
are a few verbatim quotes made by SWP members during the debate on Michael
Maggi’s motion at the March 27 CLGR meeting:
Finkel:
“Man/boy love is not part of the gay rights movement; it’s exploitative of
children.”
Maggi’s
motion “does not oppose the right of children to have sex with whoever they
want.” [!]
Maggi:
“I originally supported abolition of the age of consent.”
“It
would be deadly to take up David Thorstad’s position” on man/boy love.
[But
Thorstad never asked the Coalition to do so.]
“Sex
between a 30-year-old and an 8-year-old is child molestation.”
“I am
not for giving children the right to consent to sex.”
It is
one thing to have an opinion on these questions, however reactionary and
unscientific. It is quite another thing, however, to go on a campaign in the
gay movement around such a reactionary outlook. But that is what the SWP has
done. Had its motion passed the CLGR meeting, it would have split the Coalition
apart. Group after group stood up during the debate to state that they would
have to leave the Coalition if the SWP motion passed. Fortunately, it was
overwhelmingly defeated.
But
surely the SWP knew in advance that its motion would not pass. Was that the
reason they insisted on bringing it? Were they looking for a defeat that might
give them an excuse to withdraw from the Coalition? Or were they actually
trying to break apart the organization? For years I have defended the SWP
against charges that they were “splitters.” But it is hard to come
to any other conclusion in light of the recent behavior of its members in the
CLGR.
Since
Finkel/Zimmermann obviously don’t understand the first thing about this
subject, why have they chosen to write about it at such length? Is it because they
have joined forces with reactionary fools like Anita Bryant, the Interfaith Committee
Against Child Molesters, Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, and William F. Buckley?
Objectively, they most certainly have, because their arguments are exactly the
same. Word for word. Perhaps they rushed into this whole thing too quickly. But
one thing is for sure: They should get the facts before they start putting
their half-baked ideas onto paper.
There
may be more going on here than is immediately apparent. In nearly two years of
more or less active involvement in gay liberation, the SWP has, to my
knowledge, recruited not one single lesbian or gay activist. Certainly in New
York they have not. This in itself is a devastating commentary on the
inadequacy of their position on gay liberation and on the ineffectiveness of
their activity in the gay movement — at a time when so many gay activists are
seriously considering socialism as the solution to the myriad problems facing
our society. At a time when the SWP has decided that heavy industry is where
the action is, they need a rationale for not allocating their meager forces to
a “peripheral” movement like gay liberation. In their rush to justify their
current line, it seems, any and all arguments, however absurd and unjust, are acceptable.
This is the only rational explanation I can think of for the Finkel/Zimmermann
piece.
But
time marches on. Efforts to build a mass movement for lesbian/gay liberation
and sexual freedom will go on. The struggle to build a mass, combative movement
of the workers and the oppressed will go on. And sooner or later I believe that
capitalism will be overthrown. But what about the need to win the Marxist
movement to gay liberation, and the gay movement to Marxism? On this, the SWP
has once again shown that it has no constructive ideas to offer. Its “Memorandum”
has come home to roost.
Notes
1.
↑ The first, major debate inside the SWP
has been documented in the book I self-published in 1976 entitled Gay
Liberation and Socialism: Documents from the Discussions on Gay Liberation
Inside the Socialist Workers Party (1970–1973). (Since 1973, two other
internal SWP debates on gay liberation have taken place, and another one
appears to be shaping up.) This book is now out of print, but can be found in a
number of libraries. I was a leading participant in this discussion, which
generated more than 100 documents, none of which had been made public prior to
my publication of this compilation. I was told at the time that the SWP
leadership regarded my decision to make the documents public “scurrilous.”
Despite a small printing of only 200 copies, the book was welcomed by gay
liberationists throughout the world, and has been reproduced in a number of
areas by gay socialists who found it useful in understanding their own problems
in winning the left to a Marxist position of actively supporting gay liberation
and integrating it into an overall struggle to overthrow capitalism. Because of
the continuing demand, I am considering putting out a new, updated edition.
[The second edition came out in 1981, and is now out of print. — DT.]
2.
↑ [This is no longer true. The SWP has
devolved into an irrelevant sect around its longtime leader Jack Barnes, and
the party abandoned the label Trotskyist in 1982, following a speech by Barnes
rejecting the theory of permanent revolution. This speech was published
as Their Trotsky and Ours: Communist Continuity Today. In 1983, a
large number of dissidents, including longtime top leaders of the SWP, were
expelled. The Communist Party as well has become virtually irrelevant.]
3.
↑ [It is clear, even if it was not yet so
clear then, that the Iranian revolution not only put a reactionary theocratic
elite in power, but was the opposite of a “big advance for the gay rights
struggle.”]
4.
↑ [The march drew about 50,000 people.
The NAMBLA contingent was fifty men and boys strong, and right behind it came
the NOW contingent.]
5.
↑ [More than thirty years later, in his
memoir on the SWP, party leader Barry Sheppard, who wrote the “Memorandum” for
the Political Committee, revealed that he had originally planned to include a
formulation whereby no “organized national party participation” in the gay
movement would be projected, but involvement would be left up to local branches
to decide. He was told by longtime leader Farrell Dobbs that even that would be
going too far: “He said that the opposition in the party to having anything to
do with the movement was based ‘purely and simply on prejudice.’ But, he said,
if we stuck with the position I had outlined, it would split the party, and we
therefore had to reject any reallocation of our forces to the movement by the
branches. In other words, we had to capitulate to prejudice” (The Socialist
Workers Party 1960–1988, vol. 1, The Sixties: A Political
Memoir [Chippendale, Australia: Resistance Books, 2005], 322). The
party membership was never informed about this at the time.]
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