Gay emancipation a challenge to bourgeois hegemony?? was Re: [Marxism] The SWP, Gay Liberation and Leninism

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:13 PM 19/04/2004 -0400, Jose wrote:


firstly Jose thank you for your very measured and lucid account of the SWP
and its relationship to the movements. We have a lot to learn from that
history.  But just a mere quibble  - you said:

> Gay liberation was, by its very nature (and as we are seeing today once
> again in the marriage debate) a movement with profound counter-hegemonic
> implications (as the Gramscians might say), one that is tremendously
> threatening to bourgeois ideology.

If by 'bourgeois ideology' you mean the ideology of capitalist modernity I
am not at all sure you are correct.  I think that gay emancipation is
anathema not to capitalists but to conservatives.  It is in the
establishment of the Cold War alliance between capitalists and
traditionalists that one can find the reason for gay persecution during the
Cold War.  This was the price that the capitalists were willing to pay to
secure  support from conservatives against the challenge of socialist
modernity. Post cold War the need for such an alliance is not so pressing,
so you will find instances such as the Economist coming out in favour of
gay marriage for instance.

If gay emancipation was a total systemic threat to bourgeois ideology then
you would not find a pro-gay marriage editorial in the Economist, surely.

None of this is to suggest that socialists should not support full rights
for we gays of course.

regards

Gary




Dr Gary MacLennan
Lecturer
Film & Television Discipline
Creative Industries Faculty
Gardens Point Campus
QUT
Brisbane 4001


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