Harper out ... of Ottawa!

Pride 2008 statement issued by the Communist Party of Canada and the
Young Communist League

It's time for Queer Canadians to out Harper. To be clear: we really need to get Stephen Harper and his crowd out of Ottawa!!

Says who?

Today's communists are allies and activist members in Canada's queer communities. The Communist Party of Canada stands proud and in solidarity with many millions of LGBTiQ allies and activists marking Pride 2008.

• At '08 Pride events this summer lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, inter‑sex, questioning and two‑spirited communists celebrate and renew our struggles for equity and justice.
• Good news as Pride '08 begins:
• California's same‑sex marriage ruling, made possible in part by equality gains in Canada.
• Saskatchewan Tory MP Tom Lukiwski compelled to apologize for his bigoted "humour" after public outrage.
• More queer‑positive environments in the public realm.
• A growing number of high schools with gay‑straight alliances, safe space schools for queer teens, "Pride proms".
• Increasing numbers of trade unions now have active Pride and LGBT caucuses. These legal, political and cultural victories are the hard‑won results of decades of efforts by the queer community and allies.

This picture ain't all positive:

• Harper's Tories actually hope to reverse queer rights if they win a majority government.
• To divide working class resistance against imperialism and neo‑liberal policies, right‑wing forces constantly scapegoat the LGBT community and racialised groups.
• Pride events have been skewed by corporate sponsorship; and compromised by homophobic "Murder Music".

Despite Canada 's welcoming image:

• Queer youth in Toronto and Montreal seeking asylum from persecution in other countries are being extradited.
• HIV‑positive men still face barriers to travel across the Canada‑US border.
• Completely unjustified homophobic bans on blood and organ donations by gay men remain in place.
• Sex‑reassignment surgery is no longer covered under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan.
• LGBTQ secondary students, (over two-thirds in a recent survey) report feeling unsafe at school, (compared to 1 in 5 straight students).

Globally,

• The struggle for full gender and sexual equality faces enormous challenges.
• Working class queer people who suffer especially vicious discrimination and as women and racialized communities bear the severe brunt of neoliberal economic and social policies.
• ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, reports that 86 United Nations member states still criminalize consensual same‑sex acts among adults.
• In seven countries, legal punishment for homosexuality still includes the death penalty, and fearful queers must be invisible, says ILGA's Rosanna Flamer-Caldera.
• Significantly, important progress for LGBTiQ equality is being achieved in countries such as Cuba, South Africa and Nicaragua. The myth that queer rights can only be won in wealthy capitalist countries is shattered by these advances, and by the reality that homophobic and racist concepts are exported by fundamentalist groups in North America and Europe.
• Here in Canada, despite the cultural and legal shift in favour of equality and diversity, homophobia and transphobia remain powerful within the Canadian state.
• Big business argues that the Conservatives need a majority "to make Parliament work."
• Corporate media wants us to believe that Harper and his cohorts have "mellowed" their reactionary attitudes. It's true that to improve his electoral chances, Harper tries to keep a lid on his MPs.
• But the election of more fundamentalist, anti‑equality Tories would only strengthen the minority who want to impose the patriarchal nuclear family as the only "acceptable" model.
• Behind his mask, Stephen Harper is anti‑equality: he has voted against same‑sex marriage, pledged to avoid the abortion issue during his first term, leaving his options open if re‑elected, snubbed the 07 international AIDS conference in Toronto.

More danger signals:

• The appointment of anti‑choice, anti‑gay judges to provincial courts.
• The "Focus on the Family" zealots among top Tory advisors.
• The idea of a so‑called "Defence Of Religion Act" to allow wider promotion of hatred.
• Tax changes to promote the patriarchal family model.
• Moves to gut Status Of Women Canada and bar the use of government funding to promote equality.
• Legislation to criminalize youth by raising the age of consent to 16 and limit young people's access to condoms and abortions.
• Police and prosecutors are still reluctant to demand longer sentences for homophobic hate crimes.
• Canada Customs still seizes literature ordered by bookstores which serve the LGBTiQ community
• Conscious appeal to immigrant and religious communities by hate‑mongers.

At a time when the so-called "war on terror" is used to remove civil liberties for racialized communities, we need to remind each other that "an injury to one is an injury to all." Our democratic freedoms can only be protected by standing together, united in our diversity against racialized hatred, homophobia and war‑making. Now is the time to defeat:

• those who would turn back the clock,
• those hoping to seize control of Parliament and the courts in the name of "traditional family values",
• those backed by corporate interests which aim to destroy democratic rights,
• those who would gut social programs, privatize public assets, and splinter the public school system, in their drive for higher profits.
• those who label dissenters as "terrorists," and integrate Canada into the US war machine.

Communists believe that like racism, sexism, and national chauvinism, homophobia and transphobia are weapons used by Canada's ruling class to divide working people.

Most Canadians support equity. Most defend the rights of racialized and Aboriginal people. Now is the time for:

• full legal and political protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.
• community organizing to unify queer rights activism in our unions, aboriginal peoples, racialized communities and immigrants, youth and students, women, seniors, environmentalists, peace activists, the LGBTiQ community, farmers, and many others.
• uniting all forces opposed to the neo‑liberal agenda in a People's Coalition around a People's Alternative agenda, leading to widerstruggles for fundamental change.

To expand and guarantee equality gains requires full social emancipation and genuine people's power in a socialist Canada, where our economy will be socially owned and democratically controlled.

In such a society it will become possible to eliminate all forms of exploitation and oppression, while defending our sovereignty and protecting our environment. In this process, hatred and bigotry must become relics of the past. Together we will create a future in which, as Karl Marx wrote, "the free development of each is the condition for the development of all."