The recent New Jersey Superior Court ruling on the right of same-sex couples to unite and enjoy the same rights and benefits as heterosexual married couples reflects the steady gains made by the marriage equality movement. The issue exploded onto the political scene in 2004 when thousands of same-sex couples were issued marriage licenses in San Francisco.
While the Bush administration has pandered to right-wing conservatives with talk of “sacred family values,” the
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Recent outings of closeted evangelical hypocrites such as Ted Haggard have weakened efforts of the Christian right wing—in collusion with Karl Rove and other framers of the Bush administration’s strategy—to put reactionary formulations on same-sex marriage, reproductive rights, and stem cell research at the front of its political agenda.
Leading Democrats, such as Dianne (“Too Much Too Soon”) Feinstein, have predictably waffled on the issue. While the recent New Jersey ruling is limited in its scope, it acknowledges that fundamental civil rights for LGBT people must be upheld under the constitution.
Even this mildly progressive ruling comes as a surprise in a period engulfed by reactionary assaults on civil liberties. However, recent polls—such as a poll of New Jersey residents finding that 50 percent of the state’s residents favor civil rights for same-sex couples—show steady growth in support for the right of same-sex couples to wed. (Newark Star-Leger, Nov. 6)
As ground continues to crumble under the Bush administration and its ultra-right followers, the LGBT movement is in a favorable position to move the struggle for equality forward.
What direction for the movement?
For several months, a significant section of the LGBT rights movement in the United States has been shifting the focus from the struggle against bigotry and discrimination at home in favor of whipping up chauvinist hysteria against the current government of Iran. They have falsely claimed that the Ahmadinejad regime is pursuing a policy of “pogroms” against gays in that country.
Based on rumors and misinformation circulated by pro-imperialist U.S.-based Iranian exile groups, some LGBT groups in the United States have lined up with the U.S. government’s policy of racism and imperialist threats against Iran. Certain activists have rushed to join the chorus of imperialists who are calling for regime change in Iran, often without verifying what is true or not true.
These groups allege that the Iranian government’s “reign of terror” against gays is most strongly dramatized by the execution of two “gay” youths whom they claim were “gay lovers” in the Iranian city of Mashad on July 19, 2005.
Some LGBT newspapers and bloggers began viciously attacking Iran in coordination with reactionary Iranian exiles. LGBT organizations in Britain and the United States called for the overthrow of “Islamo-Fascists.” They even warned that gay bars in the United States should be on alert against possible terrorist bombings “by Muslim extremists.”
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, have questioned these allegations strongly. All of these organizations are normally harsh critics of the Iranian government.
Scott Long, Director of Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Rights Project, said there is no evidence that the two boys were engaged in consensual sex: “There is no evidence that this was a consensual act…A whole issue of speculation has been woven around mistranslations and omissions and this has been solidified into a narrative that this is a gay rights case.”
The story alleging the execution of “gay Iranian teenagers” was strongly promoted first by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a discredited, pro-imperialist organization of Iranian exiles. Earlier, the Iranian Students’ News Agency and a local Mashad newspaper reported the executions, but stated that the youths were executed for the rape at knifepoint of a 13-year-old boy.
Several witnesses, including the father of the 13-year-old who was assaulted, confirmed that he was the victim of assault and rape at knifepoint.
The initial article in Farsi about the execution on the NCRI website referred to the crime committed as being simply “lavat” (sodomy), whereas the headline and text of the original ISNA article referred to the crime as “lavat beh onf” (sodomy by coercion). Due to this mistranslation by the pro-imperialist NCRI, many major LGBT newspapers blasted headlines around the world calling for the overthrow of Iran’s government.
The Human Rights Campaign, a major bourgeois LGBT rights organization, went so far as to write a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling on “the world’s greatest democracy” to issue a strong condemnation of the execution of two Iranian youths who were “hanged in a public square after being tortured for 14 months, simply for being caught having consensual sex.”
Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission stated, “We are in shock at how distorted this story has become and that we have reached the point where the Human Rights Campaign would send a letter to the Secretary of State without doing research.” (The Nation, Aug. 7, 2005)
Oppose imperialism
The call by LGBT media outlets and organizations for regime change in Iran coincides with U.S. plans to return the Middle East to neocolonial status. By collaborating with those who demonize any government refusing to submit to U.S. dictates, LGBT “leaders” are helping those in the U.S. ruling class who seek to expand their empire and, at the same time, deny basic civil rights to LGBT people at home.
For years, the LGBT movement oriented away from militant demonstrations for LGBT equality and toward seeking “respectability” and “change from within” the capitalist system. Now, the U.S. movement is poised to regain the strength that it had in the period following the Stonewall rebellion of 1969.
The independence of activists in the United States, who are challenging the system by marrying and demanding equal protection under bourgeois law, has helped reinvigorate the movement and make impressive strides in winning over larger sections of the U.S. working class.
For the movement to make a phony attempt to “internationalize” the LGBT issue by joining the forces of imperialism against Iran or any country in U.S. crosshairs would only strengthen reaction and bigotry at home.
By opposing the U.S. war drive and standing in unconditional solidarity with those fighting back against racism, sexism and imperialism, the movement for LGBT equality will not only grow at home, but everywhere.
