LESBIAN AND gay socialists are gathering at the annual general meeting of the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Kights to break-through achieved in our recent history, and to plan building on these gains in 1986.
Treasurer (personal capacity)
During 1985 LCLGR cashed in on the hard work of lesbian and gay activists inside the labour movement over several years, and the tremendous openings provided by the miners strike, to move off the fringe of politics to the centre-stage. Early successes at the followed by the first-ever debate at the TUC and the historic victory at Labour conference. coming year must see a campaign to consolidate these advances in into action. LCLGR intend to go back to the floor of Labour's conference this year with the clear intention of winning a two-thirds majority needed to secure a place in the manifesto for lesbian and gay rights, and to ward off the likelihood of the leadership quietly dropping off the agenda. year, the chief battle to win this will be among the trade unions. Activists are beginning to recognise that trying to win over the trade union movement to both policy and action on lesbian and gay rights is central to securing real advances.
ghts A major component of this strategy must be to win the labour movement to taking a clear stand against AIDS hysteria. bench meekly followed the Tories in blaming AIDS on its sufferers, the unleashed by the gutter press in the last year has threatened to sweep away the tenuous gains made by the lesbian and gay movement. That hysteria has transformed the position of lesbians and gay men in the workplace and in the community to one, often, of ostracism and terror. It has raised the stakes involved in which there can be no lesbian and gay struggle -to heights not seen in 15 years.
Already, in sharp contrast to the Labour Party front bench, many trade unions have organised their own campaign on AIDS.
NUPE have led the way, with proper educational their membership couragement for their lesbian and gay members. LCLGR must take up and develop work in the trade unions at a much more serious level in order to deepen this process and to campaign for the implementation of the mains a purely paper policy as far as most unions and their members are concerned.
Local government equal opportunities policy is many Labour councils will have begun to develop equal opportunities policies. LCLGR will be aiming to produce a campaign pack to pull together the lessons of these experiences and to equin to take on the struggle in the many areas where, despite Labour Party policy, councils attitudes remain indistinguishable from those of the Tories.
Important to securing these advances will be the consolidation of the alliances constructed in the last year: with the black section, with the Women's Action Committee, with the organised left such as LLC, Briefing, and the LCC crucially, extending those unions. won, LCLGR members face the coming year with determination. Despite the sabotage of the Labour leadership, we retain a firm optimism that 1986 can represent an advance on the victories of 1985. • LCLGR annual meeting, London Lesbian and Gay Centre, 67-09 Cowcross Street, London ECI. details from Toby 01-226 1097. 12 months which saw the greatest were The policy and see them transformed As with last Mise While the Labour front popular hysteria "coming out'- without NALGO and with enSaturda • N ANC SPEAK i Thatcher schemes fay 86 MOBILIZE!
KINGSLE SENT Black section debate had Militant on the run