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IT'S NOT JUST UP TO GAYS

Why the upsurge in anti-gay violence? And what can the 
working-class movement do to counter it?

The New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project released 
its 1992 report March 11. It says there were 662 reported
incidents of anti-gay bias crimes in New York last year. AVP
Executive Director Matt Foreman emphasized that these figures are
the tip of the iceberg, since the great majority of attacks
against lesbians, gay men and transgendered people are never
reported.

Still, the 1992 figure represents a 12-percent increase over
1991. The rate of anti-gay violence in New York is particularly 
significant. According to national groups that track these 
statistics, the nation's most populous city is also the leader in
gay bashings. New York boasts the country's biggest lesbian and
gay community; the New York Times has estimated gays make up 15
percent to 20 percent of the city's population.

The apolitical explanation is that somehow the very existence of
a big, active lesbian and gay community invites a backlash. But 
there's nothing natural or inevitable about anti-gay violence,
any more than there is about racism or violence against women.

In fact, the ruling class deliberately uses racism, sexism and 
homophobia as a tactic to divide and weaken the working class.
That strategy was a key theme of the Reagan-Bush years. Now, the
current period of mass layoffs and economic crisis provides the
bosses with an excellent opportunity to create scapegoats on whom
other workers can vent their anger and frustration.

The religious right wing does much of the dirty work. In New York
Cardinal John O'Connor incites and foments anti-gay/lesbian 
violence in the great metropolis. Elsewhere, reactionary 
fundamentalists--less sophisticated, perhaps, but just as 
deadly--call down god's wrath. In Colorado, for example, where an
anti-gay referendum was passed last November, a terror campaign 
against lesbians and gays is under way.

The lesbian and gay community is doing a splendid job of fighting
back. But it's the duty of the rest of the working-class movement
to join in the struggle, and beat back the bashers. Now.

                               -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted 
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; via e-mail: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org or
workers@mcimail.com.)


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