The courageous judge in Massachusetts who said gays are the same as everyone else and deserve the right to marry has triggered global repercussions that include Bu$h's re-election but also many activities outside the united $tates. MIM picks up on some conversations that Amerikans may not hear much.
MIM's biggest criticism of Stalin--one that makes us doubt if he were even a communist--is that he did not lead his people correctly on the gay question. To this day, the ex-Soviet proletariat is an easy sucker for anti-gay chauvinism used by the bourgeoisie to divide the proletariat on non- principal leisure-time questions. That is why the Russian Maoist Party has had to tackle this question with aggressiveness to the point of provocation.
The proof of the true nature of the gay political question is available today in how successful professional politician Putin handled Ukraine's election for president. Yes, it was an important foreign policy question for the world, the election in Ukraine and it is in that important moment we see the role that the gay question plays in the proletariat of the ex-Soviet Union but also many other places.
In an effort to campaign against Yuschenko, Putin held a press conference. He correctly derided a Texas judge which ordered that Putin not disband a Russian oil company named Yukos that did not pay its taxes. Putin was right that it was typical Amerikan arrogance.
Putin also derided the forces involved in the so-called "Orange Revolution." So then in the midst of such important subjects and taking a cue from Bu$h no doubt, he took a shot at the side he was opposing in Ukraine's election by asking whether a gay revolution would be next.
The Yuschenko forces fired back even in English, and without the context. They said that Yanukovych was also carrying out the "Blue Revolution."(1)
Not satisfied with his gay-baiting on national television, Putin's lawyers also went to court. A critic had called Putin gay. The defense lawyer had to say it should not be considered an insult.(2)
While successful politician Putin knows how to push the buttons, we can be sure that among the proletariat the gay question screams even louder or Putin would not be pushing the buttons. A Latvian poster linked to by the unofficial "National Bolshevik" (Nazbol) website of the Russian fascists limonka.net shows a firing squad saying, "we don't care which one is the gay pedophile."(3) The same website limonka.net links to the official nazbol party website that advocates Hitler's "final solution" for the Chechens, which means eliminating them all through slaughter.(4)
At the moment, there is a lead article in a December issue of a well-read paper of the Russian/English-speaking literati featured right above an article by the fascist Limonov. The article sports a mockery of the Black Panther Program,(5) with the same picture MIM uses, with no less than two of the ten points bashing gays in order to get at Putin, including the first point in the program. Though Putin be imperialist enemy, it is shooting ourselves in the foot to take him down with gay-baiting.
The exile.ru article reeks of an FBI connection, because the FBI also historically forged documents showing Huey Newton to be gay in order to attempt to split the BPP. Having seen that move, Huey Newton moved quickly to champion gay rights and he was right. We cannot give the enemy any crease to get through. At the very least, the exile.ru mockery of the BPP program plays 100% into FBI hands.
The comfortable people of Leningrad and Moscow can make jokes like these as if the gay question were worth dividing over. They give not much thought to the people of Russia's hinterland, susceptible to such demagoguery but needing proletarian economic leadership.
Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela admitted his last surviving son Makgatho Mandela died of AIDS at age 54. Previously, "in 1996, one of Zimbabwe's foremost and revered son of the struggle, Dr Nkomo revealed that his son Earnest Thuthani aged 41, had died of Aids." (6) In some ways, the death of a ruler's son by AIDS is more revealing than the death of a poor persyn. In cases of poverty we are sure a lack of health-care was the problem. For rulers, the question could be something else.
It has been common African opinion that only gays get AIDS. The denial of heterosexual or blood transmission is adamant among common and even educated people. In Africa, the warping effect of anti-gay chauvinism and male supremacy on sexual questions (such as condom use and promiscuity) is causing millions to lose their lives --another reason sex education is a life-and-death question not to be left to parents or ignorant religious organizations. The Catholic Church in Mandela's South Africa chose this moment to object to condom use.(7) For that alone, a Bishop would be shot under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Decent people anywhere with any sense would refuse to bash gays solely on the basis of the influence of anti-gay chauvinism in Africa in causing so many deaths. It's another case where fear leads to ignorance of a fatal kind for the proletariat. This is no good for our anti-imperialist struggle --to have our side die off because of bourgeois scapegoating. It's no better than dying off because corporations sold us cigarettes.
The global funding for the tsunami relief reached the same level as the total global funding for all international AIDS, malaria and TB campaigns according to the UN.(8) Yet at the moment, 4.1 million Africans are dying just from AIDS, with 6500 deaths every day.
The gay question does successfully divide proletarian ranks, which shows that the proletariat is not ready to rule. We will be able to tell if we have reached a critical mass of proletarian leaders when we can convince the proletariat somewhere to put aside this question through solidarity.
It is the duty of the communists to use the gay question to teach the difference between science and religion and between Liberalism/fascism on the one hand and proletarian science on the other. We need a fighting unity of heterosexuals and gays/lesbians.
Notes:
1. http://www.orangeukraine.squarespace.com/display/S
howJournal?moduleId=88592¤tPage=2&creatorId=
15932
2. http://www.chechentimes.org/ru/press/?id=25069
3. http://dvinsk.front.ru/art.htm
4. http://nbp-info.ru/new/lib/nbpinfo3/05.html
http://www.nbp-info.org/library/nbp-info_3/Section_IV.htm
5. http://www.exile.ru/2004-December-10/huey_v_putins_ten_point_plan_for_the_russian_people.html
6. http://allafrica.com/stories/200501250032.html
7. http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5494196
8. http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27187 ;
see also, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=18799
1. Isn't it Liberal imperialist decadence to support gay rights?
Countless species exhibit gay behavior. It is unscientific to believe that gay sexual behavior is a specific product of imperialist decadence. Gay sexual behavior has existed in all cultures at all times.
Sexual behavior in general can exhibit imperialist decadence, by putting one's sex life ahead of the revolution or by hurting other people and by divorces that damage children's interests. It has nothing to do with gays per se.
2. Aren't you making too big an issue of gay rights just like Liberals?
MIM believes there are three strands of oppression--nation, class and gender. We do not even have a secondary strand of oppression for gay rights and we believe that the total of gender oppression is a secondary oppression.
It is the fascists and other reactionaries who are obsessed with the gay question. Like the Liberals, these reactionaries see lifestyle questions as paramount.
MIM fights back hard on the gay question to prevent division of the proletariat and as a matter of fighting against child molesting--in other words both as a class question and a gender question. Currently, many child molesters have the protection of anti-gay chauvinists who believe gays are the only ones who carry out child molesting.
Treating gays the same as everyone else is the way to end the obsession with the issue by Liberals and fascists. They should marry like everyone else, suffer divorce like everyone else and they should go to prison for child molesting just like everyone else--no difference.
3. How can you call the gay question a general gender question?
If we had a dime for every time that someone said that child molesters are all gay, we would have funded world revolution by now. Child molesting is a general gender question, not specific to gays. Heterosexual child molesting is also evil, so the proper way to handle this question is as a general revolutionary approach to gender, not just one orientation or the other. (It may make sense to read more on how MIM defines gender.)
We also call it a gender question because gay sexual behavior is largely an issue of leisure- time and our definition of gender is connected to leisure time. We cover work under the term "class."
Child molesting is a gender question, not a gay rights question.
4. Didn't Engels write a letter opposing pederasts?
Yes, he did. He did not publish it. He did not distribute a flyer just about gays. He wrote a whole book on the gender question in general, and it is not a pretty picture that he creates about humyn sexual behavior. Marx and Engels were highly critical of both heterosexuals and gays at that time. Marx and Engels were revolutionary anti- Liberals: they did not give a hoot for particular lifestyle questions except to prove that they are all linked to class questions.
This again is something that shows the lack of logic. Marx and Engels never said anything good about heterosexual child molesters.
5. You're just saying that to pander to "pc."
It does not matter who we are pandering to. The question is who is right in this case for the international proletariat.
In the Republic of Je$u$land, ex-U$A, in the ex- Soviet republic in many places, in Africa--these places have their own version of "politically correct" that revolves around lifestyles instead of real issues of class, nation and gender.
6. How is it fascist to oppose gays?
Gays are a minority group. Historically fascists stem from Liberalism and scapegoat minority groups--Jews, gays, Blacks and Chechens--to distract attention from the crisis of imperialism. Now we also have "social-fascists" who stem from communism where capitalism became restored.
Some Liberals may oppose fascism on the gay question, but all Liberals and fascists share in common a lack of an underlying system level approach. They share an obsession with cultural lifestyle and not the causes of humyn behavior. Fascists and Liberals simply have differing versions of "pc."
The word "scapegoat" means to wrongly blame for a problem. The scapegoating problem by fascists and other reactionaries is the reason MIM is not silent on the gay question. Hitler scapegoated communists, Jews, gays, gypsies etc. and we of the proletariat should have learned our lesson on the importance of solidarity.
7. Then Marxism is Liberal on the question.
Fascism and Liberalism share in common the belief in breaking down humyn society into tiny groups. Hitler targeted Jews and gays. Some fascists target Chechens. Countless fascists target their nearest neighbor of a tiny nation on a global scale--the ex-Yugoslavia being a prime example.
The underlying root of Liberalism is individualism. According to Liberals if there are 6.5 billion people, there are at least 6.5 billion social groups. Individualism is also anti-science, because of course it is impossible to scientifically generalize about the individual. To translate into Marxist terms, individualism is the philosophy of the small group, the smallest group.
U.$. elections break things into small separate issues--gun-ownership, gays and even surfing was key in San Diego mayoral elections. The underlying belief of Liberalism is that alliances of small groups can prevent abuse of power by any one dominator.
In contrast, Marxism started with only two groups--proletariat and bourgeoisie. The contrast could hardly be better--two versus 6.5 billion. Obviously the more small groups one talks about like the Liberals and fascists do, the closer one gets to saying there are 6.5 billion social groups of one individual each.
Eventually Marx added two more splits--oppressor versus oppressed nation and oppressor versus oppressed gender. The total of groups talked about as most important is eight. With Lenin, Stalin and Mao the principal focus has been on the four groups--1) Exploiters of oppressor nations ; 2) Exploited of oppressor nations ; 3) Exploiters of oppressed nations; 4) Exploited of oppressed nations. Moreover, those four groups often boil down to two again, because over 85% of the exploiters live in the oppressor nations.
Marxism derives its anti-Liberal strength and universalism by talking only about large groups--by lumping people together. If you find yourself talking about separate solutions for gays, separate solutions for Chechens, Jews, gun-owners etc., you have entered Liberal or fascist territory. Once we go down the road of looking at cultural lifestyles, there is almost an infinity of "groups" to account for. The fight to have gays counted the same as heterosexuals is a fight against Liberalism and fascism.