I have to write the following discussion paper for the Socialist Party LGBT steering group meeting at the end of this month. What do you think I should say?
Abortion rights, sex education, and LGBTQ rights have all come under attack since the 2010 election. With support from elements in the Tory party and the media, the religious right in the UK has moved to assert itself and impose their idea of “morality”. Will we have to fight the so-called “culture wars” as our US sisters and brothers have?
How socialists do/should respond to these threats?
To do:
- Break whole piece into sections with questions at the end
- write about equal marriage campaigns and oppositions worldwide
- write about Lenin introducing legal abortions in 1920
- Write about Engels and The Family – why Capitalism relies on traditional notions of ‘family’
- Why are Christians afraid of sexual dissidence? Simply for breeding to promote their viewpoint?
- Write about socialism & religion
- Write about socialism & sexual + reproductive freedoms
- Check secular organisation websites for campaigns
- Consider non-Christian issues e.g. Muslim leaders opposing same sex marriages
- http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v07n1/conshomo.html – Constructing Homophobia – Colorado’s Right-Wing Attack on Homosexuals
- http://www.socresonline.org.uk/8/4/hicks.html The Christian Right and Homophobic Discourse: a Response to ‘Evidence’ that Lesbian and Gay Parenting Damages Children or http://usir.salford.ac.uk/2311/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Institute
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralism#Morality_and_politics
- http://theocracywatch.org/
- http://atheism.about.com/od/gaymarriage/Gay_Rights_Gay_Marriage_Homophobia_Ethical_Political_Issues.htm
- http://atheism.about.com/od/gaymarriage/a/Discrimination.htm
- http://www.christianconcern.com/about