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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 185 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 185, April 1995.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Last month public figures gingerly opened their post in case they had been chosen to receive a letter from Peter Tatchell advising them – in the nicest possible way – that it might be in their best interests to come out and declare their homosexuality. But is this the way to fight gay oppression?
We should welcome MPs coming out voluntarily, but if in fact all these MPs, assorted bishops and bigots did take Tatchell up and come out of the closet, would this represent a major advance for millions of ordinary lesbians and gays throughout the country? What does it mean for someone who feels unable to be out about their sexuality because of their family, work and schoolmates rather than to protect lucrative careers or seats in marginal constituencies?
There can’t be many people in Britain who need any more proof that the Tories are outstanding hypocrites, particularly when it comes to matters of sex and morality, so this can hardly in itself be a justification. Will an out Tory be any more sympathetic to lesbian and gay rights than a closeted one? Tory women can’t hide their gender, yet that has never stopped them being hypocrites. They are often the most vehement against abortion rights and for family values. Sex and sexuality do not unite where class divides.
The obsession with outing the rich and famous, who have always been able to live much as they choose, implies that their hypocrisy is responsible for gay oppression, whereas the fact that they have not come out is in itself a result of the oppression of gays in society. Socialists will not shed any tears for ruined ministerial careers, but do we want to see people’s sexuality being used as a stick to beat them with, when there are more than enough sticks available as it is? The outing campaign gives strength to right wingers rather than undermining them as it allows them to bash all gay activists regardless of their tactics, and encourages rather than challenges the assumption that being gay is something of which to be ashamed.
Peter Tatchell seems to have cornered the market in media coverage of the fight for lesbian and gay rights, but his politics do not represent a new radical shift. In fact his acceptance and sometime celebration of some of the crudest stereotypes of gays leads back into the ghetto – not out of it.
The Tories’ bigotry has been more effectively challenged by mass demonstrations, like those over the age of consent, and working class solidarity than by a publicity campaign that if it came from the right wing media would he condemned by every socialist.
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