Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 18:35:54 +0000
Subject: Re: M-G: Dr Sendepause &  Klasberries posting again!


Rolf Martens wrote:
> One one point again, you, Bob, IMO are wrong and the Klasberries
> right: You're making propaganda for so-called marriages between
> homosexuals. This I'm against. I'm also against persecution
> by law against persons for homosexual actions. But I *concur* with
> the Klasberries (and Engels, and a great majority of workers) in
> finding homosexuality to be a very negative phenomenon, which
> it's no coincidence that the rotten bourgeoisie of today is
> making massive propaganda for:

Sorry, I thought this was the marxism list. 

"So-called" marriages? Is that to distinguish between them and heterosexual 
marriage? Why? What's so great about marriage ("gathered together in the sight of 
God...") that you want to restrict it only to people's whose sexuality you approve 
of? Surely a materialists recognises neither the Church nor the bourgeois state's 
authority in 'approving' our own relationships. We therefore see no value in 
"marriage", heterosexual or otherwise. Everything else is moralism.

Opposition to persecution on the basis of homosexuality, which you claim to 
support, has to include opposition to denial of rights for lesbians and gay men to 
live lives in accordance with their views of society. If they wish to be 'married', 
why do you, Rolf, support the bourgeois state in preventing it? What difference 
does it make?

> (Klasber:)
> >>For the perfidity, which also in the FRG has come out at the most
> >>various spots and has to be seen as a parallel to the incidents in
> >>Belgium those have to answer fully who assert that any kind of
> >>minority, consequently also homosexuals or even pederasts must be
> >>declared to possess equal rights. What a boundless nonsense!

But they are entitled to equal rights. The key word is equal. Paedophiles should be 
entitled to the same rights (fair trial, a living wage, work, etc) as anyone else. 
They should not be entitled to abuse children - BUT NEITHER SHOULD ANYONE ELSE!

Are you saying, in supporting the above statement, that having sex with someone of 
the same gender as yourself should eliminate you from some human rights? Which 
ones? Should gay men be denied the right to vote, perhaps, or lesbians be forcibly 
sterilised to prevent them having children? Or maybe we could make it illegal for 
them to marry...

> And your statement, Bob, that "workers too prostitute themselves",
> are "selling their bodies", of course is wrong.

Of course? But this is elementary marxism - the Communist Manifesto and Capital 
make endless references to the working class being prostituted by the economic 
system we live under. Workers sell their bodies every day, every hour, every 
minute. It is all we have to sell, our labour power.

>                                                             Lenin's
> standpoint I'm not so very well acquainted with, but I have
> certain suspicions that he was wrong on some not unimportant issues.
> (There was a discussion on M1 about a conflict between him and
> Kollontay - who did wrong on other issues - on these questions.
> I didn't take part in it - know too little. But I think it's quite
> possible that Kollontai was right on *these* things.

But Kollontai believed that socialism would see a great blossoming of sexual 
liberation. Hardly in keeping with your moral straitjacket and delight in the joys 
of bourgeois marriage.

NickH




     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---