TheGodlessUtopian
10th December 2012, 11:31
The following study guide is to a booklet called “Towards a Scientific Analysis of the Gay Question” (http://kasamaproject.org/2011/07/12/early-maoist-critique-of-anti-gay-bigotry-among-maoists/). It was written by the Los Angeles Research Group in an effort to debunk anti-gay bigotry among revolutionary currents. This following guide is meant as a companion. All of the questions and answers I have created myself. This guide may be reproduced free of charge.
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Methodology
Q1: Understanding how any group operates it is vital to understand their methodology. In this regard the Los Angeles Research Group is no different. What is their methodology?
A1: Their methodology is Marxist: “…the essence of Marxism-Leninism. It is dialectical materialism: the way by which communists understand and change the world. It is a tool, a guide to action in the service of the proletariat. It is not neutral, and teaches that it is not enough to simply understand the world, but that an understanding must be put to use to change the world according to the class interests of the proletariat. Using Marxist methodology means having, and putting to use, a proletarian world outlook.”
This means using Marxist science and arriving at a conclusion based on concrete facts, analysis, as well as dialectical and historical materialism. Only employing these tools can a communist organization arrive at correct political lines.
Is Gayness a Response to Decaying Imperialism?
Q2: Certain backward organizations in both past and present society assert that homosexuality is a variant of some response to the decay of imperialism. Describe how this is untrue.
A2: Using the Marxist method one would see that such a claim is ludicrous. Not only has homosexuality been identified in all historical epochs but it has existed most prominently in primitive communist societies (Iriquois, Mojaves, etc). Thus it is impossible to claim that it is a response to decaying imperialism.
Q3: Refute the statement “homosexuality is a response to male supremacist society.”
A3: Again such a statement has no bearings in history or fact.
“The truth is that homosexuality existed in matriarchal societies in which male supremacy was not dominant (such as the Philippines before the Spanish invasions of the 16th century). Thus gayness existed in periods of female dominance or periods in which women were highly respected, and not just in times of heavy oppression of women. Looking to U.S. history, the pre-Civil War period in the south was«a period of great oppression of women, but there is not recorded a corresponding rise in gayness.”
Much like the previous line on homosexuality being a response to decaying imperialism such claims are never backed up and exist on the un-Marxist concept of “natural theory;” the belief that something is simply right due to a interrelationship with “human nature.” The Los Angeles Research Group correctly smashes this presumption by reminding comrades that just as the bourgeoisie reinforces such stereotypes to solidify its own rule, communists constantly be on the lookout for such tendencies within the party so as to combat them.
Q4: So far in each of the examples noted the homophobic line has been that homosexuality is a “response” to one concept or another. Why is it a mistake to focus on responses and label it as a negative?
A4: To illustrate:
“Take for instance, the historical phenomena of capitalism and imperialism. Class struggle and wars of national liberation are “responses” we support and participate in. Class collaboration is also a “response”; it is a response to be isolated and defeated. Thus it is insufficient to dismiss a phenomenon as a “response” and as such label it negative. What is key is the form it takes, whose class interests it advances. Class collaboration is an incorrect ’response’ to bourgeois rule because it perpetuates the bourgeoisie at the expense of the working class. Class struggle and wars of national liberation support the interests of the international proletariat.”
No evidence is presented and no facts have been presented as to why homosexuality withholds class struggle. As a result it is incorrect to label it as a “response” and a negative one at that. The truth being that sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual, does nothing to define working class movements.
Is Gayness a Reflection of Petty-bourgeois Ideology?
Q5: Why is the statement “homosexuality is the ideology of the petty-bourgeoisie” an incorrect conclusion?
A5: It is incorrect because it is an unscientific use of the term. Using words in such a way as described above muddles up their meaning and obscures that the two dominate world views-that of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie-are the only ideologies. The petty-bourgeoisie reflects aspects of both the working class and the exploiting class.
“It is their social and economic position between the two dominant classes (neither capitalist nor working class), the fact that they are neither the ruling and expropriating class, nor the exploited and revolutionary class, that historically leads to petty bourgeois types of thinking (empiricism and subjectivism) and behavior (vacillation, individualism, opportunism, and tailism).
To use ’ideology’ as [some groups do] one would have to say that in general individual love relationships in this society are an ideology of the petty bourgeoisie. But it is ridiculous to speak of an individual relationship as an ’ideology’. Sexual relationships exist and will exist in all societies, primitive, feudal, capitalist, communist. What is true is that such relationships will be marked by the ruling ideology of that society. Homosexuality is no more an ideology than heterosexuality is.”
Such a conclusion is on derived from material analysis and not biased beliefs.
Q6: Debunk the claim that homosexuality is (A) an escape from chauvinistic societal attitudes and (B) that it is an escape from the movement; an unwillingness to work with members of the opposite sex.
A6: First off, Lesbianism is not an escape from chauvinistic attitudes as a Lesbian woman still faces male dominance every day while at work, school, and mass. A true Marxist knows that one cannot “escape” any facet of capitalist society so as long as capitalism itself still reigns. Indeed the ruling class uses such concepts to “…whip up anti-gay prejudice to further divide the working class. When gay women are told that what they really need is a ’good fuck’ it is not totally unanalogous to the chauvinist idea that every woman secretly yearns to be raped, that ‘no’ means ”yes” or that a ’good fuck’ will cure a woman of frigidity.” Likewise, with the latter assentation that homosexuality is an escape from the opposite sex, we know this to be false as it perfectly coincides with bourgeois view that homosexuality is unnatural. To ignore the other side of the coin, to ignore that homosexuality can be seen as the ability to relate to the same sex, an ability that heterosexuals lack, one can easily assert the opposite claim against heterosexuals.
Q7: Debunk the claim “lesbians enter into same-sex relationships because of their inability to deal with men.”
A7: To effectively answer this I will quote the Los Angeles Research Group at length.
“…there are… gay women who express strong anti-male feelings. However, there are many gay women who do not. By mentioning only the former, [certain groups] conclusion is one-sided. Similarly, it is one-sided to focus only on gay women who voice anti-male sentiments, and ignore the countless heterosexual women who express equally strong anti-male comments and actions. Likewise, the actions of many heterosexual men exhibit disrespect for women and anti-female attitudes of which rape is only an extreme example.
Anti-male sentiments expressed by gay and heterosexual women (and anti-female actions and feelings of gay and heterosexual men) reflect the appearance of things; the essence is the material oppression of women and sexism under capitalism. The key point to understand is that the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (and its ideology) has oppressed women. Consequently, there is at present a contradiction between women and men. Communists, gay or heterosexual, seek to resolve this contradiction (1) by recognizing that the material conditions to end the oppression of women can exist only under a socialist economy and (2) by working to unite all who can be united to fight both for the full democratic rights of women and for socialism.”
By focusing on unscientific claims and attempting to pass them off as fact such claims are detrimental to the struggle and only serve to cloud progress. Claiming such a comment as truth is inherently bourgeois as it asserts that woman as “not complete” without a male figure.
Q8: Debunk the claim that homosexual relationships are wrong because they “do not challenge or mobilize the masses to fight capitalism.”
A8: Elementary logic:
“The fact is, some gay people see their relationships as the primary source of their* well-being, and some heterosexual people do. No communist - gay or heterosexual - sees personal relationships as the solution to the contradictions of imperialism. Sexual relationships – heterosexual or homosexual – do not challenge the power of the monopoly capitalists, or per se ”move the struggle of the working class forward.” To say otherwise is pure metaphysics. There is nothing magical about heterosexual relationships that gives them ”natural” claim to healthy, principled relationships, just as there is nothing magical about homosexual relationships that makes them ”naturally” messed up. Some relationships strengthen the persons involved so they can engage in class struggle; others deplete energy and encourage backward ideas. Relationships are not absolute “things-in-themselves.”
As well as…
“It is precisely one of the functions of bourgeois ideology to promote the idea that there is a wall between productive life (work) and personal life. We are told, in a thousand different ways, that while the wages we receive from our work give us the means to live, it is only at home, in our relationships, in the family, at the beach or in the mountains, that we really ”live.” And for most of the people in this country, their individual personal relationships and time away from work are the only bright spots in their day to day lives. It is our task as communists to break down this artificial barrier and reintegrate productive life with personal life.”
Our job as communist revolutionaries is to expose this barrier created by nuclearism and to educate the masses on the exact function of the nuclear family in general. In the meanwhile it is a contradiction but one which must be accepted until the masses have reached sufficient class consciousness to attack such an institution.
Q9: Debunk the claim that gays are “outside ‘the mainstream of society’ because they are the ‘subject of public abuse.’”
A9: This claim is easily solved: “If gays are indeed ‘forced to live on the periphery of society,’ then they have a lot of company: communists, minorities, undocumented workers, unmarried couples, military deserters and draft resisters, prisoners, etc., are also subject to public abuse... Gays are next to you at work, at school, in the supermarket, in Mayday committees and party-building forums, in other political work. They are assembly-line workers, steel and rubber workers, hospital workers, students, electricians, teachers, lawyers, unemployed, mothers and fathers. The vast majority of gay people, like the’ vast majority of people in this country, are workers, and even the bourgeoisie doesn’t have the stupidity to characterize workers as peripheral to society.”
Claiming that sexuality, and not internal contradictions in one’s country, are the primary determining factors for one’s world outlook is un-Marxist for it supports bourgeois obsession with sex.
Q10: Revoke the claim that homosexual relationships are more “self-indulgent because they require additional cultivation.”
A10: Minimal investigation will reveal this absurd claim for what it is…
“We do not mean to imply that gay relationships are more ideal or subject to less pressures than heterosexual relationships. Gay relationships are less than ideal; heterosexual relationships are less than ideal. Gays do have to deal with pressures coming from anti-gayness that many heterosexuals don’t have to deal with: fear of getting fired, repression by the vice squad, psychological pressures of having to deal with being told you are ‘sick’ and “unnatural,” family rejection, etc. However, personal lives in many other sections of society, particularly among national minorities, are subject to ‘strains over and above’ those in white heterosexual relationships. Black relationships are subject to the ‘additional’ pressures of white supremacy and chauvinism, such as economic discrimination, police repression, welfare rules which break up families, etc. Yet we doubt that [various groups] would characterize principled relationships between black people as requiring much more cultivation or ‘self-indulgence’ – to do so would be blatantly chauvinist.”
Bigotry, in other words. As explained above this claim is debunked with little effort and shows that any organization making any such claims is not based in concrete conditions of the day.
Anti-Imperialism and Communists
Q11: Revoke the claim that gays cannot be true communists because “they do not accept struggle in all aspects of their lives.”
A11: It is better to erase this absurdity with a quote:
“It is true that communists must accept struggle in all facets of our lives. It is not true that communists are committed to struggle against all aspects of our lives. As communists, we are committed to struggle against those aspects of our lives that retard or hold back the struggle for socialist revolution. As communists we support – not struggle against – those aspects which further our goal of a socialist revolution. A personal relationship between two anglo people, or two Afro-Americans, or two Vietnamese people or two proletarians does not mean that such people are therefore not prepared to struggle against national oppression, imperialism, or the bourgeoisie. And contrary to the RU’s wishful thinking, a relationship between two men or two women does not therefore mean that they are not prepared to struggle, in principle, against male chauvinism and supremacy. In truth, this “in principle” business, is nothing but waving a red flag to cover the right essence of their line on the ’gay question.’ (By right opportunism we refer to the tactic of pursuing a course which has immediate benefits, but which when carried out has the long-range effect of holding back or injuring the class struggle.) A good communist is not determined by whether he or she relates sexually to the opposite sex, but on how devoted he or she is to the revolutionary cause of the working class. The logical extension of the RU’s position is that one must be in a heterosexual relationship to be a true communist. By this standard, Uncle Ho Chi Minh, who never married and whose devotion to the struggle of the working class need not be defended here, would not qualify.”
To believe in anything other than homosexuals are ready to carry out the great task of socialist revolution is an incorrect idea.
Material Oppression
Q12: State the material root of gay oppression (thus revoking the claim that homosexuals are not materially oppressed).
A12: Employment, housing and education among other prominent institutions which leads to homosexuals being regulated to a lower standing in society are all related to the cornerstone of capitalism…
“Our investigation leads us to believe that the material basis for the oppression of gays can be found in the role of the bourgeois nuclear family under class society in the maintenance and perpetuation of the division of labor. The bourgeois nuclear family is the economic institutionalization of personal relationships under capitalism. It is a socially isolated unit consisting of a husband, a wife, and their children. The husband works outside the home. The wife, whether or not she also works outside the home, works within it at invisible labor which maintains and reproduces the labor force. The purpose of the bourgeois family is to: 1. socialize children into understanding and accepting class relationships as they exist in this country today; 2. reproduce the class structure in microcosm; and 3. privatize the maintenance and reproduction of the working class. Class society establishes/maintains, and perpetuates divisions of labor including sexual divisions. Sexual division of labor is of incalculable use to the bourgeoisie, dividing workers into two great camps, those in social labor and those in private labor; those in private labor can and have been called forward as a reserve army of labor according to the needs of the bourgeoisie.”
To ignore this is to ignore basic Marxist positions.
Q13: Describe how the bourgeoisie maintains its workforce.
A13: The simple answer is through the institution of the nuclear family: a provider (Men), a reproducer (woman) and its future (children). To give a more thorough definition one will have to quote at length from comrade Engels’s “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and State”…
“’The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as its molecules;’ and, ‘Within the family he is the bourgeois and the wife represents the proletariat.’ This sexual division of labor indeed secures great profits for the bourgeoisie, for there is a structural unity between the sexual division of labor and class exploitation:
The first class antagonism which appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamian marriage, and the first class oppression with that of the female sex by the male. Monogamy was a great historical advance, but at the same time it inaugurated, along with slavery and private wealth, that epoch, lasting until today, in which every advance is likewise a relative regression, in which the well-being and development of the one group are attained by the misery and repression of the other. It is the cellular form of civilised society, in which we can already study the nature of the antagonisms and contradictions which develop fully in the latter.
Division of labor and private property are. . . identical expressions: in the one the same thing is affirmed with reference to activity as is affirmed in the other with reference to the product of the activity...
The ruling class ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships. . .; hence the relationships which make the one class the ruling class, therefore its ideas of its dominance.”
Continuation of this model was essential for the continuation of the capitalist mode of production. To entrench this way of thinking the bourgeoisie propounded religion, sex and gender roles, and notions of what each sex needed to strive towards in adulthood.
Q14: Why is “sexuality and reproduction” a false unity?
A14: This is a false unity because the two are not inherently tied together. Sexuality and reproduction are not one in the same to the extent where one only engage in sexual acts for the sake of reproduction. This is shown in the demand for contraceptives such as birth control and condoms.
Following this route…
“It is also true that in humanity’s earliest days, when the physical survival of the species was much more threatened by nature than it is today, people lived under circumstances where reproduction was of immediate concern. Women spent most of their time either pregnant, in childbirth, recovering from pregnancy, and nursing infants. The infant mortality rate was astronomical. As people began to develop technology and to accumulate surpluses, it became necessary to establish clear lines of male inheritance. Reproduction thus came to be institutionalized with the development of private property, the first class relationships, and the institution of marriage. Thus, formalized relationships developed not out of the necessity of insuring reproduction (which was being taken care of well enough) but out of the need to control it and to control people and their relations to the means of production. These institutions served to curb people’s expressions of sexuality by penalizing reproduction outside of marriage which would threaten the transmission of property and property relationships. (One effect of this was to place severe limitations on most women’s behavior, since they bore the children. Men were allowed to copulate with relative freedom with concubines, slaves, mistresses, and members of the non-propertied classes in general.)”
[…]
“The history of civilization has been in part the ruling class’s attempts to enforce the connection between sexuality and reproduction in order to preserve private property through the institution of inheritance. Repressive laws against adultery, pre-marital sex, illegitimacy and homosexuality (which often carries the heaviest penalties), are examples of the repressive measures taken by the ruling class to punish those who rebel against its false unity of sexuality and reproduction.”
This stance is weakened further when one considers that homosexuals can contribute to the population question by adopting children who would otherwise not contribute towards society, have children from previous marriages when they were forced to copulate out of shame, and through modern invirto-fertilization.
Such a fact is in addition to how society under socialism will inevitably change to accommodate collective child rearing (such as the example cited in the text).
Democratic Rights
Q15: Why is fighting for gay rights important tot eh communist movement?
A15: Just as fighting for women’s liberation and Black liberation is vital to liberating all segments of society so is fighting for gay rights. Lagging behind in this struggle can only results in many potential comrades becoming alienated and turning to bourgeois modes of thinking. As any materialist knows to truly enter into communism all contradictions among the working class must be resolved. Hence failure to resolve the contradiction among gay and straight worker is tantamount to the abandonment of the struggle.
The Gay Movement
Q16: How did the gay liberation movement become coopted by petty-bourgeois elements?
A16: Despite what so-called Marxist might like to believe, the movement was taken over by reactionary elements precisely because of revolutionary apathy…
“The communist forces in the gay movement were also small in number and still primitive, and got very little support for their work from other communists. Many gay communists saw anti-war work and the working class movement as more important; gay women communists saw the women’s movement as a higher priority than the gay movement. As a practical result, the gay movement was abandoned by communists to the leadership of the petty-bourgeoisie to where it is now dominated, on the one hand, by a few opportunists and reformists, such as the Gay Community Services Center (GCSC) and Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), who are bought off by government and foundation grants. On the other hand, there are those in the gay community who put forth gay separatism and chauvinism as the solution to gay oppression. These separatists, along with the gay reformers, are the most vocal segment of the gay population.”
The degeneration of some such groups were accelerated by reactionary attitudes within revolutionary groups; abandonment meant that the gay liberation organizations needed to find their own means to freedom and so sought refuge in other societal sectors and ideologies.
Conclusions
Q17: What is the nature of the contradiction between hetero-and-homosexual?
A17: In a single word: non-antagonistic…
“;it can be worked out through principled struggle. Communists, gays and heterosexuals alike, must unite with the progressive aspects raised by the gay movement and struggle against those bourgeois elements which exist. The communist’s role is not to trash or abandon any possible allies to the bourgeoisie but to show that socialist revolution under the leadership of the working class and its party is the means to the liberation of all people. This consciousness will not arise spontaneously in the gay movement. ‘This consciousness [can] only be brought to them from without.’[sic] Just as men, women, heterosexuals, gays and minorities cross all class lines, any organization of these groups will reflect one or another class line at any given historical period depending on the strength and development of the different class forces. Gays are not inherently revolutionary (as some gay groups would say), nor inherently reactionary (as some ‘communist’ groups would say). The class nature of gay liberation will change only when it is given revolutionary working class leadership. Until then, like all other groups, bourgeois ideology will fill the political vacuum. Even the working class, left to itself, can only develop trade union consciousness, which in the last analysis is bourgeois. To expect the gay movement to be any different when left without proletarian leadership is pure idealism. Gay people, particularly working class gays, are perfectly capable of enthusiastically grasping the science of Marxism Leninism and of being disciplined revolutionary fighters. To make enemies of potential allies is to abandon the working class and its interests.”
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Methodology
Q1: Understanding how any group operates it is vital to understand their methodology. In this regard the Los Angeles Research Group is no different. What is their methodology?
A1: Their methodology is Marxist: “…the essence of Marxism-Leninism. It is dialectical materialism: the way by which communists understand and change the world. It is a tool, a guide to action in the service of the proletariat. It is not neutral, and teaches that it is not enough to simply understand the world, but that an understanding must be put to use to change the world according to the class interests of the proletariat. Using Marxist methodology means having, and putting to use, a proletarian world outlook.”
This means using Marxist science and arriving at a conclusion based on concrete facts, analysis, as well as dialectical and historical materialism. Only employing these tools can a communist organization arrive at correct political lines.
Is Gayness a Response to Decaying Imperialism?
Q2: Certain backward organizations in both past and present society assert that homosexuality is a variant of some response to the decay of imperialism. Describe how this is untrue.
A2: Using the Marxist method one would see that such a claim is ludicrous. Not only has homosexuality been identified in all historical epochs but it has existed most prominently in primitive communist societies (Iriquois, Mojaves, etc). Thus it is impossible to claim that it is a response to decaying imperialism.
Q3: Refute the statement “homosexuality is a response to male supremacist society.”
A3: Again such a statement has no bearings in history or fact.
“The truth is that homosexuality existed in matriarchal societies in which male supremacy was not dominant (such as the Philippines before the Spanish invasions of the 16th century). Thus gayness existed in periods of female dominance or periods in which women were highly respected, and not just in times of heavy oppression of women. Looking to U.S. history, the pre-Civil War period in the south was«a period of great oppression of women, but there is not recorded a corresponding rise in gayness.”
Much like the previous line on homosexuality being a response to decaying imperialism such claims are never backed up and exist on the un-Marxist concept of “natural theory;” the belief that something is simply right due to a interrelationship with “human nature.” The Los Angeles Research Group correctly smashes this presumption by reminding comrades that just as the bourgeoisie reinforces such stereotypes to solidify its own rule, communists constantly be on the lookout for such tendencies within the party so as to combat them.
Q4: So far in each of the examples noted the homophobic line has been that homosexuality is a “response” to one concept or another. Why is it a mistake to focus on responses and label it as a negative?
A4: To illustrate:
“Take for instance, the historical phenomena of capitalism and imperialism. Class struggle and wars of national liberation are “responses” we support and participate in. Class collaboration is also a “response”; it is a response to be isolated and defeated. Thus it is insufficient to dismiss a phenomenon as a “response” and as such label it negative. What is key is the form it takes, whose class interests it advances. Class collaboration is an incorrect ’response’ to bourgeois rule because it perpetuates the bourgeoisie at the expense of the working class. Class struggle and wars of national liberation support the interests of the international proletariat.”
No evidence is presented and no facts have been presented as to why homosexuality withholds class struggle. As a result it is incorrect to label it as a “response” and a negative one at that. The truth being that sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual, does nothing to define working class movements.
Is Gayness a Reflection of Petty-bourgeois Ideology?
Q5: Why is the statement “homosexuality is the ideology of the petty-bourgeoisie” an incorrect conclusion?
A5: It is incorrect because it is an unscientific use of the term. Using words in such a way as described above muddles up their meaning and obscures that the two dominate world views-that of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie-are the only ideologies. The petty-bourgeoisie reflects aspects of both the working class and the exploiting class.
“It is their social and economic position between the two dominant classes (neither capitalist nor working class), the fact that they are neither the ruling and expropriating class, nor the exploited and revolutionary class, that historically leads to petty bourgeois types of thinking (empiricism and subjectivism) and behavior (vacillation, individualism, opportunism, and tailism).
To use ’ideology’ as [some groups do] one would have to say that in general individual love relationships in this society are an ideology of the petty bourgeoisie. But it is ridiculous to speak of an individual relationship as an ’ideology’. Sexual relationships exist and will exist in all societies, primitive, feudal, capitalist, communist. What is true is that such relationships will be marked by the ruling ideology of that society. Homosexuality is no more an ideology than heterosexuality is.”
Such a conclusion is on derived from material analysis and not biased beliefs.
Q6: Debunk the claim that homosexuality is (A) an escape from chauvinistic societal attitudes and (B) that it is an escape from the movement; an unwillingness to work with members of the opposite sex.
A6: First off, Lesbianism is not an escape from chauvinistic attitudes as a Lesbian woman still faces male dominance every day while at work, school, and mass. A true Marxist knows that one cannot “escape” any facet of capitalist society so as long as capitalism itself still reigns. Indeed the ruling class uses such concepts to “…whip up anti-gay prejudice to further divide the working class. When gay women are told that what they really need is a ’good fuck’ it is not totally unanalogous to the chauvinist idea that every woman secretly yearns to be raped, that ‘no’ means ”yes” or that a ’good fuck’ will cure a woman of frigidity.” Likewise, with the latter assentation that homosexuality is an escape from the opposite sex, we know this to be false as it perfectly coincides with bourgeois view that homosexuality is unnatural. To ignore the other side of the coin, to ignore that homosexuality can be seen as the ability to relate to the same sex, an ability that heterosexuals lack, one can easily assert the opposite claim against heterosexuals.
Q7: Debunk the claim “lesbians enter into same-sex relationships because of their inability to deal with men.”
A7: To effectively answer this I will quote the Los Angeles Research Group at length.
“…there are… gay women who express strong anti-male feelings. However, there are many gay women who do not. By mentioning only the former, [certain groups] conclusion is one-sided. Similarly, it is one-sided to focus only on gay women who voice anti-male sentiments, and ignore the countless heterosexual women who express equally strong anti-male comments and actions. Likewise, the actions of many heterosexual men exhibit disrespect for women and anti-female attitudes of which rape is only an extreme example.
Anti-male sentiments expressed by gay and heterosexual women (and anti-female actions and feelings of gay and heterosexual men) reflect the appearance of things; the essence is the material oppression of women and sexism under capitalism. The key point to understand is that the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (and its ideology) has oppressed women. Consequently, there is at present a contradiction between women and men. Communists, gay or heterosexual, seek to resolve this contradiction (1) by recognizing that the material conditions to end the oppression of women can exist only under a socialist economy and (2) by working to unite all who can be united to fight both for the full democratic rights of women and for socialism.”
By focusing on unscientific claims and attempting to pass them off as fact such claims are detrimental to the struggle and only serve to cloud progress. Claiming such a comment as truth is inherently bourgeois as it asserts that woman as “not complete” without a male figure.
Q8: Debunk the claim that homosexual relationships are wrong because they “do not challenge or mobilize the masses to fight capitalism.”
A8: Elementary logic:
“The fact is, some gay people see their relationships as the primary source of their* well-being, and some heterosexual people do. No communist - gay or heterosexual - sees personal relationships as the solution to the contradictions of imperialism. Sexual relationships – heterosexual or homosexual – do not challenge the power of the monopoly capitalists, or per se ”move the struggle of the working class forward.” To say otherwise is pure metaphysics. There is nothing magical about heterosexual relationships that gives them ”natural” claim to healthy, principled relationships, just as there is nothing magical about homosexual relationships that makes them ”naturally” messed up. Some relationships strengthen the persons involved so they can engage in class struggle; others deplete energy and encourage backward ideas. Relationships are not absolute “things-in-themselves.”
As well as…
“It is precisely one of the functions of bourgeois ideology to promote the idea that there is a wall between productive life (work) and personal life. We are told, in a thousand different ways, that while the wages we receive from our work give us the means to live, it is only at home, in our relationships, in the family, at the beach or in the mountains, that we really ”live.” And for most of the people in this country, their individual personal relationships and time away from work are the only bright spots in their day to day lives. It is our task as communists to break down this artificial barrier and reintegrate productive life with personal life.”
Our job as communist revolutionaries is to expose this barrier created by nuclearism and to educate the masses on the exact function of the nuclear family in general. In the meanwhile it is a contradiction but one which must be accepted until the masses have reached sufficient class consciousness to attack such an institution.
Q9: Debunk the claim that gays are “outside ‘the mainstream of society’ because they are the ‘subject of public abuse.’”
A9: This claim is easily solved: “If gays are indeed ‘forced to live on the periphery of society,’ then they have a lot of company: communists, minorities, undocumented workers, unmarried couples, military deserters and draft resisters, prisoners, etc., are also subject to public abuse... Gays are next to you at work, at school, in the supermarket, in Mayday committees and party-building forums, in other political work. They are assembly-line workers, steel and rubber workers, hospital workers, students, electricians, teachers, lawyers, unemployed, mothers and fathers. The vast majority of gay people, like the’ vast majority of people in this country, are workers, and even the bourgeoisie doesn’t have the stupidity to characterize workers as peripheral to society.”
Claiming that sexuality, and not internal contradictions in one’s country, are the primary determining factors for one’s world outlook is un-Marxist for it supports bourgeois obsession with sex.
Q10: Revoke the claim that homosexual relationships are more “self-indulgent because they require additional cultivation.”
A10: Minimal investigation will reveal this absurd claim for what it is…
“We do not mean to imply that gay relationships are more ideal or subject to less pressures than heterosexual relationships. Gay relationships are less than ideal; heterosexual relationships are less than ideal. Gays do have to deal with pressures coming from anti-gayness that many heterosexuals don’t have to deal with: fear of getting fired, repression by the vice squad, psychological pressures of having to deal with being told you are ‘sick’ and “unnatural,” family rejection, etc. However, personal lives in many other sections of society, particularly among national minorities, are subject to ‘strains over and above’ those in white heterosexual relationships. Black relationships are subject to the ‘additional’ pressures of white supremacy and chauvinism, such as economic discrimination, police repression, welfare rules which break up families, etc. Yet we doubt that [various groups] would characterize principled relationships between black people as requiring much more cultivation or ‘self-indulgence’ – to do so would be blatantly chauvinist.”
Bigotry, in other words. As explained above this claim is debunked with little effort and shows that any organization making any such claims is not based in concrete conditions of the day.
Anti-Imperialism and Communists
Q11: Revoke the claim that gays cannot be true communists because “they do not accept struggle in all aspects of their lives.”
A11: It is better to erase this absurdity with a quote:
“It is true that communists must accept struggle in all facets of our lives. It is not true that communists are committed to struggle against all aspects of our lives. As communists, we are committed to struggle against those aspects of our lives that retard or hold back the struggle for socialist revolution. As communists we support – not struggle against – those aspects which further our goal of a socialist revolution. A personal relationship between two anglo people, or two Afro-Americans, or two Vietnamese people or two proletarians does not mean that such people are therefore not prepared to struggle against national oppression, imperialism, or the bourgeoisie. And contrary to the RU’s wishful thinking, a relationship between two men or two women does not therefore mean that they are not prepared to struggle, in principle, against male chauvinism and supremacy. In truth, this “in principle” business, is nothing but waving a red flag to cover the right essence of their line on the ’gay question.’ (By right opportunism we refer to the tactic of pursuing a course which has immediate benefits, but which when carried out has the long-range effect of holding back or injuring the class struggle.) A good communist is not determined by whether he or she relates sexually to the opposite sex, but on how devoted he or she is to the revolutionary cause of the working class. The logical extension of the RU’s position is that one must be in a heterosexual relationship to be a true communist. By this standard, Uncle Ho Chi Minh, who never married and whose devotion to the struggle of the working class need not be defended here, would not qualify.”
To believe in anything other than homosexuals are ready to carry out the great task of socialist revolution is an incorrect idea.
Material Oppression
Q12: State the material root of gay oppression (thus revoking the claim that homosexuals are not materially oppressed).
A12: Employment, housing and education among other prominent institutions which leads to homosexuals being regulated to a lower standing in society are all related to the cornerstone of capitalism…
“Our investigation leads us to believe that the material basis for the oppression of gays can be found in the role of the bourgeois nuclear family under class society in the maintenance and perpetuation of the division of labor. The bourgeois nuclear family is the economic institutionalization of personal relationships under capitalism. It is a socially isolated unit consisting of a husband, a wife, and their children. The husband works outside the home. The wife, whether or not she also works outside the home, works within it at invisible labor which maintains and reproduces the labor force. The purpose of the bourgeois family is to: 1. socialize children into understanding and accepting class relationships as they exist in this country today; 2. reproduce the class structure in microcosm; and 3. privatize the maintenance and reproduction of the working class. Class society establishes/maintains, and perpetuates divisions of labor including sexual divisions. Sexual division of labor is of incalculable use to the bourgeoisie, dividing workers into two great camps, those in social labor and those in private labor; those in private labor can and have been called forward as a reserve army of labor according to the needs of the bourgeoisie.”
To ignore this is to ignore basic Marxist positions.
Q13: Describe how the bourgeoisie maintains its workforce.
A13: The simple answer is through the institution of the nuclear family: a provider (Men), a reproducer (woman) and its future (children). To give a more thorough definition one will have to quote at length from comrade Engels’s “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and State”…
“’The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as its molecules;’ and, ‘Within the family he is the bourgeois and the wife represents the proletariat.’ This sexual division of labor indeed secures great profits for the bourgeoisie, for there is a structural unity between the sexual division of labor and class exploitation:
The first class antagonism which appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamian marriage, and the first class oppression with that of the female sex by the male. Monogamy was a great historical advance, but at the same time it inaugurated, along with slavery and private wealth, that epoch, lasting until today, in which every advance is likewise a relative regression, in which the well-being and development of the one group are attained by the misery and repression of the other. It is the cellular form of civilised society, in which we can already study the nature of the antagonisms and contradictions which develop fully in the latter.
Division of labor and private property are. . . identical expressions: in the one the same thing is affirmed with reference to activity as is affirmed in the other with reference to the product of the activity...
The ruling class ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships. . .; hence the relationships which make the one class the ruling class, therefore its ideas of its dominance.”
Continuation of this model was essential for the continuation of the capitalist mode of production. To entrench this way of thinking the bourgeoisie propounded religion, sex and gender roles, and notions of what each sex needed to strive towards in adulthood.
Q14: Why is “sexuality and reproduction” a false unity?
A14: This is a false unity because the two are not inherently tied together. Sexuality and reproduction are not one in the same to the extent where one only engage in sexual acts for the sake of reproduction. This is shown in the demand for contraceptives such as birth control and condoms.
Following this route…
“It is also true that in humanity’s earliest days, when the physical survival of the species was much more threatened by nature than it is today, people lived under circumstances where reproduction was of immediate concern. Women spent most of their time either pregnant, in childbirth, recovering from pregnancy, and nursing infants. The infant mortality rate was astronomical. As people began to develop technology and to accumulate surpluses, it became necessary to establish clear lines of male inheritance. Reproduction thus came to be institutionalized with the development of private property, the first class relationships, and the institution of marriage. Thus, formalized relationships developed not out of the necessity of insuring reproduction (which was being taken care of well enough) but out of the need to control it and to control people and their relations to the means of production. These institutions served to curb people’s expressions of sexuality by penalizing reproduction outside of marriage which would threaten the transmission of property and property relationships. (One effect of this was to place severe limitations on most women’s behavior, since they bore the children. Men were allowed to copulate with relative freedom with concubines, slaves, mistresses, and members of the non-propertied classes in general.)”
[…]
“The history of civilization has been in part the ruling class’s attempts to enforce the connection between sexuality and reproduction in order to preserve private property through the institution of inheritance. Repressive laws against adultery, pre-marital sex, illegitimacy and homosexuality (which often carries the heaviest penalties), are examples of the repressive measures taken by the ruling class to punish those who rebel against its false unity of sexuality and reproduction.”
This stance is weakened further when one considers that homosexuals can contribute to the population question by adopting children who would otherwise not contribute towards society, have children from previous marriages when they were forced to copulate out of shame, and through modern invirto-fertilization.
Such a fact is in addition to how society under socialism will inevitably change to accommodate collective child rearing (such as the example cited in the text).
Democratic Rights
Q15: Why is fighting for gay rights important tot eh communist movement?
A15: Just as fighting for women’s liberation and Black liberation is vital to liberating all segments of society so is fighting for gay rights. Lagging behind in this struggle can only results in many potential comrades becoming alienated and turning to bourgeois modes of thinking. As any materialist knows to truly enter into communism all contradictions among the working class must be resolved. Hence failure to resolve the contradiction among gay and straight worker is tantamount to the abandonment of the struggle.
The Gay Movement
Q16: How did the gay liberation movement become coopted by petty-bourgeois elements?
A16: Despite what so-called Marxist might like to believe, the movement was taken over by reactionary elements precisely because of revolutionary apathy…
“The communist forces in the gay movement were also small in number and still primitive, and got very little support for their work from other communists. Many gay communists saw anti-war work and the working class movement as more important; gay women communists saw the women’s movement as a higher priority than the gay movement. As a practical result, the gay movement was abandoned by communists to the leadership of the petty-bourgeoisie to where it is now dominated, on the one hand, by a few opportunists and reformists, such as the Gay Community Services Center (GCSC) and Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), who are bought off by government and foundation grants. On the other hand, there are those in the gay community who put forth gay separatism and chauvinism as the solution to gay oppression. These separatists, along with the gay reformers, are the most vocal segment of the gay population.”
The degeneration of some such groups were accelerated by reactionary attitudes within revolutionary groups; abandonment meant that the gay liberation organizations needed to find their own means to freedom and so sought refuge in other societal sectors and ideologies.
Conclusions
Q17: What is the nature of the contradiction between hetero-and-homosexual?
A17: In a single word: non-antagonistic…
“;it can be worked out through principled struggle. Communists, gays and heterosexuals alike, must unite with the progressive aspects raised by the gay movement and struggle against those bourgeois elements which exist. The communist’s role is not to trash or abandon any possible allies to the bourgeoisie but to show that socialist revolution under the leadership of the working class and its party is the means to the liberation of all people. This consciousness will not arise spontaneously in the gay movement. ‘This consciousness [can] only be brought to them from without.’[sic] Just as men, women, heterosexuals, gays and minorities cross all class lines, any organization of these groups will reflect one or another class line at any given historical period depending on the strength and development of the different class forces. Gays are not inherently revolutionary (as some gay groups would say), nor inherently reactionary (as some ‘communist’ groups would say). The class nature of gay liberation will change only when it is given revolutionary working class leadership. Until then, like all other groups, bourgeois ideology will fill the political vacuum. Even the working class, left to itself, can only develop trade union consciousness, which in the last analysis is bourgeois. To expect the gay movement to be any different when left without proletarian leadership is pure idealism. Gay people, particularly working class gays, are perfectly capable of enthusiastically grasping the science of Marxism Leninism and of being disciplined revolutionary fighters. To make enemies of potential allies is to abandon the working class and its interests.”