Vote Yes! For the Right of Same-Sex Marriage...and Divorce!

We reprint below a leaflet distributed by supporters of the Spartacist League at the Sydney “YES Rally for Marriage Equality!” on 10 September.

As Trotskyist fighters for the socialist liberation of humanity, we stand committed to full democratic rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people. We support any legal advances that can be wrested from this cruelly bigoted society, including the right to marriage…and divorce. We call for a yes vote in the upcoming postal survey on same-sex marriage, which asks “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?” We make this call because the survey is widely seen as a referendum, despite it being non-binding on any legislature. While forthrightly defending the democratic rights of LGBTI people to wed we also note the socially conservative framework of the campaign, with its drive for bourgeois respectability and embellishing of the institution of the family (for more analysis see “For the Right of Gay Marriage… and Divorce!” Australasian Spartacist No. 212, Autumn 2011).

Indeed prejudice against LGBTI people flows from the repressive institution of the family, the source of women’s subjugation and a key prop for capitalist rule. Enslaving women to domestic drudgery, marriage and the family are social constructs that tie sex to private property rights. They are upheld to both ensure the “rightful” inheritance of property for the bourgeoisie and the raising of the next generation of wage slaves, instilling conservative obedience to the “values” of bourgeois morality. Homosexuality is deemed “sinful” and “deviant” by religious reactionaries and all manner of homophobes because it challenges the traditional gender roles of the monogamous, heterosexual family. The destruction of capitalism through workers revolution will lay the basis for replacing the family by providing the material means to socialise and collectivise its functions (for example, establishing communal childcare, communal kitchens, and free quality healthcare). This is part of our struggle to sweep away bourgeois class rule and all its means of reactionary social control, including marriage.

As intransigent defenders of LGBTI people, we recognise that the legalisation of same-sex marriage will not end the often deadly prejudice and violence encountered every day in this sick, homophobic, capitalist society. We also warn workers and youth against being sucked into the lie that the ALP defends the interest of LGBTI people and the oppressed. The ALP backed the Howard government’s bigoted marriage amendment act in 2004, which defines “marriage” as “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.” It voted against same-sex marriage when in government. Now, given the evident support for same-sex marriage, the ALP has cynically seized on the issue to use as a wedge against their Tory rivals. As for the capitalist Greens, they push the lie of a kinder capitalism that is “fair” to all. Thus they prevent many who are disillusioned with the major parties from rejecting this bigoted, bloody, oppressive and exploitative system as a whole.

The organised labour movement must vigorously oppose all bigotry and discriminatory attacks on LGBTI people and every oppressed sector. In order to liberate itself from the chains of capitalism, the working class must understand its historic task to abolish class society and open the road to human freedom for everyone. The mobilisation of the immense social power of the organised working class against capitalism necessarily means a sharp political struggle against the nationalist, chauvinist leaders of the ALP, its trade-union lieutenants and their left hangers-on, and for the construction of a revolutionary leadership. This is the 100th year since the October Revolution, led by Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolsheviks, which brought the working class to power in Russia. As fighters for new October Revolutions we recall with pride that one of the early acts of the Soviet government was to abolish Tsarist laws against homosexuality and other consensual sexual activity. We fight to complete their struggle for a socialist future where sexual relations will be based on mutual desire, freed from material pressures, religious stigma and legal shackles.