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Well, what are the political aspects of the gay rights movement? Really? They fall into two at least two quite separate elements. There are the narrow legislative aims the attempts to get, for example, uh, sexual orientation included in the Human Rights Commission Act so that it's no longer legal to discriminate against gay people. Uh, there's the obvious thing about, uh, changing the Crimes Act so that male homosexual acts are OK. They [00:00:30] really aren't the major focus, though, of the movement at present in terms of, uh, longer term political objectives, which are really aimed at the restructuring of society along nonsexist lines along lines that don't force people into particular stereotype roles along lines that will force really a rather close and perhaps disturbing examination of the intimate relationships between people, be they between men and women or men and men [00:01:00] or women and women. Um, the attempt to look at the power relationships that go on in families. Well, how do you see what would be your your ultimate vision of of such a society, what sort of power relationships would be, um, very radically changed? I think particularly the patriarchal power relationships by which most men are almost guaranteed that be it publicly or privately, their power [00:01:30] to make decisions, and particularly their ability to control the decision making of women is, uh, really almost unrestrained at present. Now that is something which we would like to see challenged and drastically altered so curiously as a male homosexual here, you're pushing the women's barrow. Oh, look, there's no question of it that as far as gay liberation is concerned and the gay movement in general, our [00:02:00] aims cannot be achieved Until feminism has been totally successful. We can never get ahead of the feminist movement because, in fact, the major gains that are going to be made in that area will be made by women, and the best we can do is to offer support. Well, freeing sexuality from the patriarchal family structure could be seen by many as a direct threat to the basic social and economic unit of our society, which is a sacred institution. You were saying you would quite happily threaten this. Are you talking of the family? Yes, the basic [00:02:30] family unit. OK, one has to distinguish between the family and the institution of marriage. Now the family can consist of a variety of forms so that you can have, for example, one person living on his or her own. You can have two men living together, two women living together, a man and a woman living together with no Children. You can have all of those things I've just mentioned with Children. You can have those things, uh, with much older adults. Grandparents, for example. [00:03:00] You can have groups of two or more adults, such a vast variety. Now, those kinds of relationships presumably, are absolutely central and essential to any human society. And I don't think that the gay movement or the feminist movement, for that matter, is on about the destruction of a person's right and ability to live in those kinds of familial relationships. But when it comes to the question of marriage, it's a different story. [00:03:30] I don't think that the gay movement is going to demand that marriage be forbidden. What it is on about is the stopping of the present situation by which the marriage institution has an extra special privilege over and above all others, so that if you are not married, then your ability to pass on property, your ability to make all kinds of legal contracts may be hindered. Your [00:04:00] ability to accept particular forms of accommodation loans. Other things from the government are all hindered. The marriage institution has some kind of political hegemony over the rest of society, and the gay movement is on about the removal of that hegemony, not the removal of the family institutions that maybe go with that with again. The exception I mentioned before that within all of those familial kinds of relationships. [00:04:30] What, of course we want to see is much more egalitarianism, the freedom of people to make their own decisions, the freedom of people to make their own commitments and to end those commitments When it becomes obvious that that particular relationship is no longer serving the interests of the people concerned within it, there are some relationships that are much better destroyed for the sake of all. This brings us onto the ground surely of coming straight up against, uh, Christian religion, doesn't it? [00:05:00] If you start talking about the marriage institution, the primacy thereof, I guess it may do, uh, that's up to Christians to sort out. I gather there's a lot of, uh, division within the Christian movement as to just what the essential elements of marriage are. Um, certainly, I think it's correct to say that uh, many, many gay people identify the organised Christian movements as the chief source of our oppression and also the chief [00:05:30] source of much of what we criticise in a patriarchal, sexist society. So all in all, really, in your terms, the gay rights movement is a radical political movement. Well, it certainly should be. I hope it is the unquestioned factors that there are people within the movement who don't have those long term objectives. I guess there are very many people in the gay movement who do perceive their objectives as the narrow legislative ones, and they feel that [00:06:00] once they're allowed to, uh, this is males allowed to have sex with one another, Uh, or with all gay people that once they're no longer discriminated against, then that's it. But for those people who adopt, and I don't like the elitist term of leadership, but for those people who do fulfil the leadership positions at present, I think there is a recognition that really the lot of gay people and the lot of women is not going to be improved just with those legislative changes that, in fact, there are whole [00:06:30] institutional structures. Uh, be they education, the large public ones or the family, The private ones, which really do pass on all kinds of ideological nonsense about what it is to be a woman or what it is to be gay. And until those things are altered and until you're you're able to restructure society by altering the public and private institutions, gay people and women don't really stand to gain very much. So you wouldn't stop the gay rights [00:07:00] fight if tomorrow, for instance, by some miracle attitudes changed. Homosexuality was decriminalised and discrimination was outlawed. Oh, not immediately, No, I don't think so. Uh, first of all, you know, obviously that's a hypothetical question, and and the the chance of any society changing the whole of its attitudes overnight and the way it changes its socks, uh, just isn't on. Um, But even if that did happen, uh, we're talking of such vast and really [00:07:30] quite traumatic changes to society that really, uh, for a long time afterwards, one would be working at the creation of new alternatives. You see, it's really not possible for any radical group to describe the kind of society that it's going to create if you work in with groups of gay people. And I've heard many feminists describe the same thing in working with groups of women, when you see the huge amount of creativity and almost [00:08:00] unlimited energy that women working together can unleash or gays working together can unleash, you'd have to be a fool to predict the form and nature of the society that those people are going to create once they're allowed to achieve their objectives and to have a whole human race in which every woman, every gay every black person is freely contributing is freely, uh, participating in that society. You know, we we're envisaging something [00:08:30] that no human being has any perception of at present. Do you hope for this to be an evolutionary change, or do you think it's going to have to be revolutionary? Oh, I think basically most people would hope that you can have an evolutionary change. Uh, I personally and this doesn't necessarily reflect the beliefs of all other people in the movement. I believe that once it becomes obvious that the kinds of things that we [00:09:00] are seeking are going to become reality. Then there are strong vested interests in society who will unleash the kind of persecution that one has seen. For example, in Cuba, where concentration camps were set up for homosexual people, Uh, or in other socialist countries where they are either denied to exist or where they're quite extensively persecuted. I believe that at some stage, the state and organised elite groups will unleash [00:09:30] violence against gay people. And I think that we will have every right to defend ourselves. And the same goes for women. Uh, but that won't be a violence or a bloodletting that's been initiated by either of those two movements. Do you think that the gay movement is in danger of being split between the radicals with the sort of world vision that you yourself might have and those who just seek acceptance of their quiet minority lifestyle? Oh, undoubtedly, Yes, yes, I think that's already apparent. There are, as [00:10:00] I said before, many groups who are quite happy to accept just the legislative changes and then get on with the quiet life. I think by and large, what tends to happen is that the more those kinds of people get involved in the kind of upfront political activity and are identified in the media and start getting the kind of, um hassling that many of us face, they rapidly become radicalised into believing and acknowledging that those [00:10:30] narrow aims are nowhere near enough. Uh, one very, very quickly learns to be radicalised when you see the way in which liberals suddenly get off the bus two stops before you want them to and, uh, pick up arms with the conservatives who you've been fighting all the time. And I think that when you see those people getting off the bus, you recognise that you've got to go on a few more steps than you've intended. How left wing is the movement? You you You have said that in Cuba there [00:11:00] was tremendous repression, for instance of, um of homosexuals, and this has happened in other socialist states. But do you see advantages in in Marxist humanist ideology, for example, is there any tie up here? I believe yourself are a Marxist. Yes, I am. I don't see any necessary connection between Marxism and Gay liberation. And as you said, I pointed to what happened in Cuba. When you look at what happens in the Soviet Union and in China, uh, anybody who wants to tell gay people that their salvation lies in adopting [00:11:30] socialism, frankly, is a liar. I hope that some someday we do see a socialist society. But I think that it is absolutely essential that gay people who want to achieve their liberation must achieve that on their own and quite independently of any Marxist movements. Because the history of Marxism is a history of selling out on gays of persecuting gays. Why do you hang in there with them? That as as, well, yourself [00:12:00] as I say, I believe that socialism is something that's worth achieving. But just the historical background of what, uh Marxists traditional Marxists have tended to do to women and to gays leads me to believe that just traditional old working class socialism on its own is not enough, because basically, the socialist movements have been led by men and mainly by straight men, mainly by white men. And they really don't [00:12:30] see what it's like to be oppressed as black or women or gay or whatever else, which would you put first? Oh, I wouldn't, um I think that it's up to each person to to look at society and see how he or she is being oppressed and looking at the, uh, groups with whom they most associate looking at things they can most easily do with their talents or with their opportunities to work in those movements. Uh, I certainly won't won't [00:13:00] go along with the message that, you know we've got to achieve Socialist Revolution first, and then all the other things can come afterwards. Um, for me, there's a kind of a broad front that's got to be built there between feminists and socialists. Between non-racial between people in gay liberation and so on, those groups have to learn from one another. They have to learn to support one another in public, even if they do disagree privately over tactics and strategies. Is there any international [00:13:30] tie up with between gay rights movements? Uh, and that they're associated in any aims other than acceptance and non-discrimination in in in the more revolutionary things that that you've mentioned culturally, socially and politically, is there Is there a conscious tie up and organised internationalism, if you like, Up until the middle of last year, No, there wasn't very much. Uh, in late 1978 a group of nine countries came together [00:14:00] to form the International Gay Association. Uh, my latest information on that is that there are now about 17 countries with, uh, gay groups as members of the International Gay Association. I think that basically those groups tend to share the kinds of things that I've just been talking about. Uh, but it's really a little early to say the thing has been going for less than a year. Uh, it's had extreme communication problems because the centre of that [00:14:30] organisation is in fact, in Dublin. And there's been the British and Irish postal strike, which totally destroyed communication for several months. So, uh, there's really no way of knowing just which way that organisation is going to go. Do you have any tie up with? Um, you've said that you allow yourself with feminist movements, this sort of thing. Do you have any tie up under for what could be called a fertility control movement with Planned Parenthood associations with, um, uh, abortion on demand groups things like this, because [00:15:00] apparently the International Planned Parenthood Federation has three key points to control fertility, one of which is to encourage homosexuality. And the other two are to encourage abortion and to encourage women out to work. Now, how do you see your role in that sort of context? Is is this a conscious? I find that really very amusing. I've I've never heard of the International Planned Parenthood Federation pushing homosexuality. Uh, and certainly when you look at, uh, affiliates like the New Zealand, um, Family [00:15:30] Planning Association, I think that for us to go to them and seek support, uh would be, uh, quite unacceptable. Uh, probably to both groups, because my impression is that many of those groups are inherently pretty conservative. In fact, uh, my understanding of much of what the International Planned Parenthood Federation does is that it is directly anti feminist. Um, their message is not one of pushing for the choice of women. Very often, they're pushing over population type hypotheses. [00:16:00] And I've noticed many feminist posters in which the International Planned Parenthood Federation is described as part of the enemy along there with doctors. So I find that whole, you know, international conspiracy theory Quite ludicrous. Do you openly recruit in that you set out to make the homosexual lifestyle look so attractive and the ordinary marital one look restrictive and destructive. Barbara Faithful says gay rights coalition material made available in schools, lists eight advantages [00:16:30] of homosexuality and criticises the heterosexual lifestyle. Yeah, uh, I presume that she's talking about a pamphlet called on Being Homosexual. Now, I have seen copies of that, uh, pamphlet. It is not a national gay rights coalition pamphlet. Um, in terms of recruiting, I guess that depends on what she means by that, Uh, I guess our most obvious attempt to recruit is among the gay community itself, uh, to make more [00:17:00] gay people aware of their situation and to, uh, raise their consciousness to the to the situation where they will start to become more active in the movement in terms of recruiting in schools. Uh, I presume that by that she means we're attempting to convert kids from heterosexuality to homosexuality to make them dissatisfied with the the sort of roles that they're being handed by their family and the schools. Yeah, that's a very crude misunderstanding of the way sexual orientation develops in a person. There's no way in which [00:17:30] you can simply go along and run A you know, a TV advertising campaign to convert the population to to homosexuality. Uh, by the time you've got to kids in schools that we speak to, say, seventh form kids, their sexual orientation is well and truly settled anyway, so, no, there's no way that we're attempting to recruit in that manner. Also, uh, Barbara Faith has got to acknowledge, and so has the rest of the Concerned Parents Association that we don't actively recruit at all. To the [00:18:00] best of my knowledge, no gay group in this country has ever invited itself into a school. We have only ever gone into schools at the invitation of the principal, the coordinator of Liberal Studies school committee, the PT a or whatever it is. And there's never been an attempt on our part to, you know, move in on schools and force something on them they don't want. And are there many schools who are prepared to invite you to come along and do this? I only know the Christchurch and Wellington [00:18:30] situations, uh, in Christchurch. There's no more than about four or five schools who regularly take part in such programmes. Uh, in Wellington. I know of only two that have adopted that policy. Um, And when we go into schools, our attempt is not really to convince people of the advantages of homosexuality per se, but to show them that, in fact, homosexuality is a valid lifestyle and that there is no reason to discriminate [00:19:00] against it. Um, it would be rather foolish of us to try and, uh, pressurise kids into adopting a particular lifestyle or sexual orientation, which wasn't natural to them. I mean, the whole basis of much of our claim is that each person should be free to express that which is natural to him or herself. And so the attempt to force people to join our movement and our sexuality would be ludicrous.
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