LESBIANS and gay plans for how we should live.
The depth and ferocity of establishment hysteria at the gains made by gay people over the last decade was made obvious to everyone by media coverage of the Bermondsey by-election.
But this was just the tip of an iceberg of popular prejudice police persecution.
During the last few weeks alone, people have been arrested in police raids on gay saunas in Merseyside and South Wales. Coventry Council WCADOI COlEOH ed, refused to allow a gay testival to be held at Lan chester polytechnic. ~ But all is IOCOORH There have been major breakthroughs for gay rights activists.
The Labour Campaign for Gay Rights has been Te-CosCe duCEs Calupaign the movement has won the acve support or wide st ons or Luc baboul Ic Many councils, led by the GLC, now men have much to protest about and not a lot to celebrate during this year The re-election of a government dedicated to Victorian family values and strengthening police powers promises a rough future for the millions of people in Britain who do not fit in with Thatcher's have anti-discrimination policies.
The Labour Party as a Whole now nas a com ment to full equality for the first time ever. Its ac- women anee mer To tual policy. Co aold discriminatory grossly inadequate, sure. For example, it calls ToT a ecos m uie ace of consent for gay males to 18. rather than the lo tor everyone else.
But the door has now OCCI openca not be easy for the right wing to close it again.
The same struggle has been taken up in the trade unIOns There was Hsvcycr venuon at the NUT conference this Spring. A tew weeks ago NALGO voted to boycott anti-gat venues, published a national pamphlet on gay rights.
In a few weeks time, the TGWU's decision to hold its conference on the Isle Man, witen homosexuality is still totally illegal, will not go unchallenged.
Such are vital CVCUILS for the future of the gay OCLS SuCeC DuL no Ics cause for optimism comes from the way young peo. ple have come forward to lead the battle The Gay Youth Move ment (GYM) recently held highly successtul national festival, has registered spectacular growth. The GYM contingent is bound to be one of the most militant on the uay rriae Marca 'old' leadership of the Labour Party Young Socialists, which has for long regarded the gay issue as at best irrelevant. or else as some petti bourgeois deviation was rocked by the dramatic im pact of the Gay YS at it:
Caster conference.
The Gay YS has grown from nothing in a couple of months and looks set to Hav a ball a he LPY, towards CULL fronting fighting around all the problems o The Gay Pride march on Saturday 2 July commemorates the famous day fourteen years ago when for hefirse tim Nur i on in New York their police attackers and drove them off.
Even more reason, this year, then to show that gay people are proud, defian and unbowed.
• See page 5 for report or gay movement in Mexic Ribou: am, alenom st, Rights:
Gay Young Socialists: 13 Buxton Ra Elthorne Est,