It is with sre?t pride that Jim and I present the 6th Issue of THE STORM! The relevance of gay liberation to anarchism, and vice verso, is begining to be recognized. The need for a publication that addresses both the cay aild anarchist T.oveaents *-i 11 hopefully be served by this and ruture issues of THE STORM!
In all areas of life TBE STORM! advocates non-authoritarian, non-hierarchiol, voluntary associations. Upon the basis of individual eoveriegnty, anarchists in the p«6t have advocated free love, the abolition of compulsory marriage. Thi6 idea is Ju6t now coining of age. The logical implication of free love i6 sexual anarchy, the overthrow of all social regulation of voluntary sexual interaction.
Hand in hand with 6exual anarchy goe6 the concert of vsycholorical androgyny. That is ..."Considering no psychological or personality trait as inherently characteristic of either sex. One'6 identity a6 male or female is then simply a matter of acceptance of the obvious biological differences, nothing more. Then women and men both would be free to be Individuals First" In the words of Sharon Presley, Association of Libertarian Feminists coordinator.
Yet another indicator of the spread of sexual anarchy i6 a play that recently comoleted its limited showing at The Olines, a New York City Gay Arts Center. Wonderful Lives, A Musical Fantasy written, produced, and directed by Jim Ferguson is the story of two suces6ful and liberated people, a straight woman and a gay man. Sexual preferences notwithstanding, they live together in closest friendship. The line that best describes the play's philosophy i6 delivered to an irate husband who reluctantly grants his new wife her freedom. "But it16 not yours to give!" she reviles.
This issue brings together, between the covers and among the sheets, several gay, anarchist, and libertarian talents=
TCM AVERY i6 o -enber of the Association of libertarian Feminists, and a founding member of NY libertarians for Gay Rights, and was Free libertarian Farty candidate for Comptroller of NYC in 1973. DORA HESSE, lesbian atheist anarchist and student of Icelandic and English Etymolory, lives with her lover in Chicago where in 197' she was one of the youngest non-members of that city's Gay Alliance. "Liberal reformism ic Quite corrupting," she 6ays, "and it ill get you if you don't watch out." HAROLD PICKETT begins a ner> column in this i66ue. A past contributer to THE STORM! Harold i6 a poet, a columnist for Boston'6 Gay Community News, NY editor of the NY Gay Alternative, and an activist member of NY Gay Anarchists. ERIC THORNDALE was an anarchist at age eleven and had backslidden into minarchism only twice since then. In '71A73 he spoke on gay rights at 33 high schools east of the Mississippi and was an enthusiastic practitioner of the creatively militant gay Zap. In the last three years he has taken some amazing trips but always come6 back hale and 60und. KERRY THORNLEY has been an active anarchist since the antiwar movement of the '60's. An outspoken advocate of Erotic Minority liberation and communal 6exual lifestyles. Kerry publishes the broadside Promise' land Tines at 9811 Hillhaven, Tugunga, Ca. 910/»2. IA"' YOUNG is a gay anarchist roet who epends his ti-ne commuting between Toronto and New York City. A columnist for Body Politic, Ian i6 also the publisher of Catalyst Pook6, featuring gay poetry and fiction, at 315 Balantyre Ave. Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. JIK "ERNOCHAV, t,-/ co-editor and 6exual comrade, is a member of Hunter College's Gay Men's Alliance, where he majors in Sociology. In addition to gay counseling, Jim has been engaged in public sneaking and organizing for gay rights, and is a writer for Hunter's Gay Clone and NY Gay Alternative. THIS WRITER was a contributor to various anarchist Journals when he decided to 6tart hi6 own. He called it THE STORM! after a book by John Henry Mackoy, and 6ubtitled it a Journal For Free Spirits, after Lauranee Tabadie's DISCUSSION. He is often seen in the company of notorious homosexuals and anarchists.
The next STORV! Jill include S. E. Parker on European anarchist individualism and final comments on the great syndicalism debate. To those who made this issue pos eible, all my thanks. ^ -W^uOt, A- SfclUMo 10/31/H
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TC MAVY, THE MEMORY OF EMMA GOLDMAN (1 69-19*40) If one of a courteous and compassionate freedom fifhter -ho ree th, true lefender of thorv victimized by soci-ty. Goldman's outspoken opinions about free love, social deviance, and feminism, chocked puritan Auerica hile raising the eyebrows of felloe radicals who shied away from such controversial issues. Her early defense of "the love that dare not 6peak its natre" has shown her to be light-years ahead of her tire. Society i 6 Just now beginninf to catch uo with Emma; there is a crass gay movement challenging the nonosexual oppression which exists in industrial society. While people are coming out of their closets in defiance of church and state, it is appropriate to point out that an anarchist, En-a Gold an, was the first person to publicly speak out for homosexual rights in America. At a time when liberal politicians are only now r3llyin<- to the gay cause, it is important to realize that the anarchist Emma Goldman did this before the turn of the century. She insisted on addressing this 1 ong ignored issue at a time when It was illegal to publicly 6ay the v/ord "homosexual." Unlike BeMa Abzu-'s thirst for the gay vote, Emma's defense of homosexua1ity sprang from her sense of social justice. This will be a four part article exploring Goldman's radical opinions about homosexuality and her respect and friendships *ith homosexuals. It vill be a tribute to the women who felt compelled to speak out against the tyranny of society.
SMMA GOIDKAU WROTE A LETTER to Alexander Berkman In 1929 saying that It was Freud who gave her her first understanding of homosexuality in a lecture 6he heard him deliver while visiting Vienna in 1396. Later, Goldman's lover Edward Brady told her of the existing homosexuality in prison; 6he also encountered it during her own imprisonment. And Berknan's own Prison Memoirs contains several passages concerning homosexuality in the Pennsylvania V'eetern Penitentiary. V'ithout shaxe, he wrote of the warn friendship he had with a fellow homosexual inmate. In one remarkable passage, he writes about a conversation he had with a Doctor George concerning homosexuality. True to form, the Doctor's own sexual insecurity led him to believe that homosexual feelings were perversions. To this, Berkman replies,
George, I think it a very beautiful emotion. Just as beautiful as a love for a woman. I had a friend here; his name was Russell; perhaps you remember hir_. T felt no physical passion toward him, tut I think I loved him with all ny heart. Hl§ death was a terrible shock to me. Tt almost drove :e insane.
Feeling that it ras an inroortant nart of any book concerning prison, ESrrra Goldnan became outraged .hen lubliehers -.anteJ to censor the horosexual content of Prison "eroirs. Prison was the place here Em-i Goldman Tirst met onen homosexuals r nd sn •• the < as ncoole; they beca-e hunen beings and not clinical studiec ty "r the.i c u'J fully understand the nrobleas that ho-nosexuals encountered i hos'llo society that l.-nies the their person-hood. —-
When out of prisont Emma Goldman storrr.ed the country *ith her famous lecture tour6, delivering them with the fiery emotion that made her a 6Uoerb speaker. Dealing with controversial topics, her lectures often brought about oolice violence and nob attempts to silence her. When sneaking on homosexuality, censorship unfortunately came from her own anarchist comrades. They felt that treating "unnatural" themes and "pervertrd" sex forms like hoxosexua11ty would only add to the already existing misconceptions of anarchy. a rebellious Goldman replied that
Believing in freedom of opinion, even if it vent against me, I minded the censorship in my o».n ranks as little as I did those in the enemy's camp. In fact, censorship from comrades had the same effect on me 86 police persecution; it made me surer of myself, -nore determined to plead for every victim, be it one of social wrong or of moral predjudice. 5
£»sa Goldman's inspiring lectures proved to have a great effect on the many gay people of her tine. A lesbian named Lucille Hart claimed it was Emma loldian *-ho turned her towards anarchism; they later became good friends. In her writings about her speaking tour of 191 5> Efema mentions the influence 6he had on other homosexuals. Goldman rrote that
The men and *omen who used to come to see me after my lectures on homosexuality, and who confided to me their anguish and their isolation,were often of finer grain than those who had cast them out. Most of them had reached an adequate understanding of their differentiation only after years of struggle to stifle what they had considered a disease and a shameful affliction ... Their pitiful stories made the social ostracism of the invert seem aore dreadful than I had ever realized before. To me anarchism was not a mere theory for a distant future; it was a living influence to free us from inhibitions, internal no less than external, and from the destructive barriers that seperate man from man. i*
IT IS INTERESTING TO READ That Emma Goldman had to say about the famous homosexual figures of her time. Not letting predjudice get in her way, 6he admired the -erits of these people, and unlike others, she acknowledged that these izr<ortant figures were homosexuals. Oscar Wilde, the Kitty anarchist, was one such person whom Emma Goldman admired and often ouoted. Wilde was imprisoned in 1395 for "committing acts of gros6 indecency with other male persons. He served a two year sentence which contributed to his untimely death three years later. While visiting Paris in 1900, Goldman accepted an invitation to spend an evening with writer Oskar Panizza, Dr. Eugene Schmidt, and Oscar Wilde. Although Emma, a great admirer of both Panizza and Wilde had to cancel due to an important committee meeting that evening, 6he did get to 6pend 60me time a few day6 later in conversation with Dr. Schmidt. The description of this interesting conversation is in the Goldman autobiography Livlr.r My Life. Some years prior to the conversation, Eana had defended Oscar Wilde in her speeches in the United States. Emma Goldman writes that
During our walk in Luxembourg I told the doctor of the indignation I had felt at the conviction of Oscar Wilde. I had pleaded his ca6e against the riserable hypocrites xho had sent him to his doom. "You!" the doctor exclaimed in astonishment. "Why, you must have been a mere youngster then. Ho* did you dare cone out in oublic for Cscar Wilde in puritan America? "Nonsence!" I replied; "no daring 16 reouired to protest against a great injustice. 5
The re6t of the day va6 spent in hot debate about sexuality,and ircparticular, homosexuality. Goldman felt that the doctor, not being opensinded, was scandalized that "a young voman should speak vithout reservations on such tabooed subjects.
Emna Goldman certainly did not let bigotry get in her ray v,hen praising the great works of Walt Whitman. She v.as led by her perceptive and insightful interpertations of Whitman to lecture on the "keys" to understanding his writings. One of these key6, never entering a college or university, gave Whitman an original and an independent cind. Deciding that Whitman's bisexuality was another key, Goldman said
the clearer it is to me that it was his sex differentiation which enriched his nature, hence enriched his knowledge of and his understanding for human complexities. Walt Whit-an's idea of universal comradeship was conditioned in hi6 magnetic response to hi6 own sex. So was his extraordinary sensitiveness to the nature of woman conditioned in the fact that he had considerable femininity in him. All combined ... to make up his greatness as a poet and rebel and needs no apology or defense. 6
It is interesting to note that Goldman felt that homosexuals could be sensitive to women's issues due to a degree of fe-ininity vithin them. M06t people feel that homosexuals hate women because of their sexual interest in men. Not only is this idea a silly stereotype, but it is a sexist ignorance of the love between lesbians. Str.aa Goldman's idea shojs remarkable understanding of the nature of both homosexual women ana men.
Walt Whitman, like ra06t gay people of his time, tried to keep his homosexuality a secret. In a letter to Evelyn Scott in 1927, Goldman v.ith great sympathy wrote of the hardships Whitrr.an had to face. She comments that
I am inclined to think that even his most devoted friends, with the exception of Horace Traubel, would have dropped him like a 6hot if he had openly owned up to his leanings. This is best seen by the constant apologies that nearly all American and English biographers and commentators are making. The fools do not seem to realize that Walt Whitman's greatness as a rebel and poet may have been conditioned in his sexual differentiation and that he could not be otherwise than what he was. 7
Edward Carpenter was one of the first najor figures in the English homosexual rights movement, inspired in part by the ?/riting6 of Whitman and Thoreau. He was a well known anarchist, advocate of prison reform a6 »ell as a fir-r. believer of romen'6 and homosexual rights. His classic essay Honogenic Love, published in 1395, became an early defense of homosexuality, highly Influential nlthin the radical movements. Enna Goldman's references of Carpenter in her
eseay6 and book6, have shown her to have reat respect for this early homosexual e-nancipator. She wrote that the highlight of her summer trin through England In 1925 "■as a visit she paid to the eighty year old Carpenter. During this tine, Carpenter wa6 living vrith his younger lover Goe, a relationship lasting thirtyfive years. Goldman felt that Goe talked too much but described their relationship a6 being ."Identical4'as an older husband to a younger wife." In a letter to Berkraan, Qnma writes that
Well, there i6 one thing to be said for Goe; he takes good care of Ed; the house 16 spotlessly clean and neat. There is another man outside of Goe, the cook. And, Edward treats Goe every bit as a nan treats his younger wife. It really was funny. But the main pathos, though screamingly comic, is the fact that the cook 6eems to be the lover of Goe, or at least the younger friend to compensate hin for the old age of Edward Carpenter. Really dear, life is a circus if only one ha6 enough sense of humor...Well a6 long a6 Edward Carpenter has a pleasant and comfortable old age, what is the difference. ° Though tickled by a 1925 gay relationship (something funny because 6he never witnessed one before), Carpenter'6 happiness was Goldman's major concern.
WHILE RESEARCHING THE LIFE of Samn Goldman in the Boston Onivercity Library, Allx Kates Shulnan discovered correspondence between Goldman and a lesbian named Alraeda Sperry. Little 16 known of Sperry except for the information gathered from these unpublished letters . Apparently, she was born in 1879 and corresponded with Goldman while in Pennsylvania in 1912. Her parents forced her to go to church, making her hate the institution and its religious hypocracy. Sperry, an anarchist feminist, had been Involved In union organizing, and at times wrote for radical newspapers. Though married, she found herself sexually attracted to women, often writing about her friend Florence. She was an angry woman, seeing men a6 being too sex obsessed, while still remaining attached to her husband Fred.
Feeling no guilt about her erotic feelings, Sperry quite openly expressed her pa66ionate love for Bsma Goldman. The letters show that there is no doubt about Sperry'6 Intense feelings, but the extent of the Goldman-Sperry friendship is uncertain. The amazing thing i6 that phile most heterosexuals would have felt intimidated by such correspondance, Eama Goldman continued writing and pursued a friendship with Sperry. Though not returning love In the way Sperry wished, a friendship did bloom, reulting in Emma and Almeda spending a week together In the country.
EDWARD CARPENTER
These letters shor that Enc.a Goldman, rith remarkable openmindedness, had an honest and warm friendship with a lesbian,something, even today very few people would dare do.*
•Lack of space prevents ne from reprinting the Goldman-Sperry letters. Exerpts from these letters do appear in Jonathon Katz's book Gay American History.
(
IN 1923. WHILE IN EXILE for speaking out against World War 1, an article by Emma Goldman appeared in the Yearbook for Sexual Intermediate Types. The paper wa6 issued by the ficientlfic-Humanitarian Committee, Germany's leading homosexual rights organizations. This organization did wonderful work in educating people about homosexuality until Hitler'6 forces killed them off. Dr. Magnus Hirchfeld, the head of the committee, prefaces her article with a brief history of Qnna, calling her the "American Freedom Fighter'.' He closes with "the wi6h that Goldman may 600n be permitted to return to her home and activities in America from the exile in which 60 many have been languished 6ince the chaos of the World War."
Goldman's article, in letter form, had a pro-homosexual thene, citing her defense of Oscar Wilde and other homosexuals. The bulk of her article was a response to an earlier e66ay by Karl Von Levitzow, allegating that the famous nineteenth century anarchist Louise Michel was a lesbian. Here 6he ie critical, though understanding, of the defense U6ed by oppressed minorities, which attempts to establish that all important historical figures belong to their group. She mentions that this defense is a natural response given the fact that homosexuals have always been portrayed negatively. She 6ays that Jews and other minority groups practice thi6 same form of defense. Louise Michel, to Goldman's knowledge was not a lesbian, though if she were it would neither increase nor diminish her greatness. ESnma Goldman concludes her article saying that it is her wish to only eee Louise Michel portrayed as the extraordinary woman 6he was.•
INDEED EMMA GOIDMAN has lived up to the liberating principals of anarchism. Her early defense of homosexuality shows an openmindedwoman with the courage to stand up to a hypocritical society and agitate for the liberty of all. Certainly, Qnraa Goldaan i6 the morning star proceeding the dawn of 6exual anarchy.
1 It was once against the law to publicly say the word "homosexual. Word6 like Arians and inverts were used in its place. Benjamin Tucker a6 well as Bnrea Goldman refused to adhere to this law.
2 Berkman A.,Prison Memoirs , pi*33-3h
3 Goldman E. , Living Mjr Life, vol.2, p. 555-56 it Ibid
5 Goldaan E. , Living My; Life, vol.1, p.269
6 Drinnon R., Rebel In Paradise, p.161
7 Drinnon R&A, Nowhere At Home,p. 1 ifO-i+1
8 Drinnon 9&A, Nowhere At Home, p.127-28
•Lack of space unables me to reprint this article, though its translated version
appears in Gay American History.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berkman,Alexander, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, 1970, Schocken Books. Drinnon, R&A, (editors), Nowhere At Home, 1975. Schocken Books. Drinnon, Richard, Rebel in Paradise, 1961, Dover. Goldman, Emma, Anarchism and Other E6say6, 1969. Dover. Goldman, Emma, Living My Life (vol1Sc2), 1970, Dover.
Katz, Jonathon, Gay American History, 1976, Thomas Y. Cromwell. _
Shulman, Alix Kates, Red Emma Speaks, 1972, Random House. r==
The<Ufc and Ideas of Jofin Henrtj Mackau
SEVEN YEARS have gone by since I first cane across the name of John Henry Mackay. I xs6 -aking my transition from classical liberalism and Eastern ranthei6» toward social anarchism and ph^oscphic materialie- by -.ay of Benjamin Tucker and Mikhail Bokunin and other authors that were featured in the anarchist anthologies that /ere easily available at the ti-e. The best of these anthologies was Krimerir.an and Perry's PATTERNS CF AYARCHY (1). The editors devoted ouch space to anarchism'6 internal debate bet*een pure Individualise and pure cocrunisra. Presenting the case for individualise was an exer->t fro= THE AVARCHISTS: A PICTURE CF CIVIIIZATTCV AT THE CLOSE OF THE fl'JETEEVTH CENTURY by John Henry Mackay. When the sovereign individual awakes to life, I read, "the knell of the State has sounded: society takes the place of fovernrent; voluntary associations for definite purposes, the place of the State; free contract, the place of statute law."(2) I read, and wanted to read more.
AFTER WAITING a couple of years, I purchased the library reprint of THE ANARCHISTS. Reading it while traveling thousuands of miles away from home, I could not but help to identify 'ith young Carrard Auban, Mackay's protagonist, whose vision of life was very much my own:
The wanderer walk6 alone. But he does not feel lonely. The chaste freshness of nature communicates itself to him.
He feels: it is the morning of a new day. (3)
So I felt, high on the cliffs of Oahu and the peaks of the Tetons, discovering nature - and myself. But the reality of authoritarian society, insensitive to beauty and to the deep currents of personal desire, intruded on the ecstatic vision of the wanderer. Ironically, so I later found out(i+), I had more in common with Mackay than his Joyou6 individualism. Like him, my Joy was tainted with the fear of society'6 condemnation of my homosexual nature. Mackay found a weapon to U6e against society: Max Stirner's DER EINZIGE UND SEIN EIGENTHUM (THE EGO AND HIS OWN) (5).
I, too, read Stirner's exposition of amoral egoism, and found in it much rtrenght and inspiration for my own battle against internalized 6exual norms, "or Stirner nothing was sacred; the individual ego needed no justification for its existence - it ras its own Justification. All transcendental concepts: god, 6tate, society, race, reason, nature, and even freedom were exposed as tools of exploitation used by those in authority to exact obedience from unthinking millions. Thu6 with Stirner's cry,"Nothing is more to me than myself!", -y cominr-out paralleled Mackay's victory over self-condemnation.
TT A AS only recently, by reading ThOTas A. Rileyi6 biofrranhy^of John Henry M-nckay, that I was able to cone to know thi6 kindred spirit with his faults as well as hie str■ nrhts. John was born February 6th,\oU in Scotland, but he «as taken three years later to Germany upon the death of his father. His ether «ae a well-to-Jo -OTan fro- the Tamily of Ehlers in Hamburg; ?ell-educated and *el -traveled, John grew uo with a strong attach-ent to her.
Upon her return to Germany hl6 another carried a Prussian government official, and John grew up hating hie foster father and the children he brought with him into the family. Riley considers Mackay's unhappy family background the source of his hatred of both authority and marraige. His"abnoraal" attachment to his mother is correlated by Riley to hj.8 "abnormal" desire and love for teenage boy6. He writes that 6ex with a woman was unthinkable to Mackay, who nevertheless had woman friends and wrote with great empathy of the plight woman victimized economically and eexually by society.
Ho one hates marriage more than I. But it is only the compulsion of marriage which induces men and women to sell themselves to each other, which affects and obstructs free choice, which makes difficult, and for the mo6t part impossible, a separation, which creates a state of misery from which there is no deliverance except death.... But Ju6t as well as the free union of two persons (for life, ed.) do I understand the inclination of many people to change the object of their love; and unions for a night, for a spring time - they nust be as free as the marraiges for life, which alone are sanctioned by public opinion today. (7)
MACKAY HAD been writing poetry, 6tories, and novels for seventeen years when hi6 mother, who had been supporting him modestly, died in 1902. Perhaps this propelled him into deeper involvement with the German homosexual rights movement of the time. Magnus Hirschfeld led the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee which sought respectability in it6 demands for sexual freedom for consenting adults. Mackay joined forces with those who defended the right of th06e under sixteen years to freely express their own sexuality. The pedophile wing of the movement took inspiration from Greek and Italian Renaissance cultures with their e-phasie on the masculine Image, 8S opposed to the effeminate Image of Hirschfeld's supporters (historically a tragic division which 6hows signs of repeating itsolf). At this Derlod of his life, Mackay wa6 associated with Benedict Friedlander, author of RENAISSANCE DES EROS URANIOS which called for the revival of Hellenic chivalry, ie. the close friendship between youths and, especially, between men of unenual ages. Friedlander, *ith Adolf Brand and Wllhelm Jan6en, founded the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (Community of the Special). Many members of the Gemeinschaft were bisexual, including Friedlander, and 60 were on solid ground when they attacked Hirschfeld's theory that homosexuals constituted a third sex. The main purpose of heterosexual relations wa6 pro-creative, they asserted, and homosexual-pedophile relations *ere aesthetically superior. (Whether they recognized the subjective nature of aesthetic judgements I do not know.) The journal of the Community was called DER EIGENE, the first issue of which was devoted much more to anarchism than to homosexuality, advertising the *orks of Proudhon, Stirner, Tucker, and Mackay. According to James D. Steakley,
Politically, DE" EIGENE had at first a Stimerian anarchist editorial stance which evolved over time to an anti-Marxist "libertarian socialism" or "socialitarianism", closely reflecting Friedlander's admiration of Eugen Duhring. (8)
And according to Riley, DSR EIGENE wa6 "an art magazine of homosexual literature". (9)
Mackay's association .vith the Gepeinschaft der Eigenen lasted until the death of Friedlander in 1903. Unlike his predecessor who had Given John financial assistance, Jansen, heir to the funds of the Co-imunity, refused to aid the poet-anarchist in any way. Mackay had already begun writing on homosexual themes under the pseudonym of Sagitta. One of thea was a brochure entitled QEH0ER1 —NUR EI"EN AUGENBLICKI
v.hich endeavored to explain what boys meant to such men (ae rrere being
brought to trial amid rufclic 6candal,e.-. A. Brand, ed note.) and the
ffl
"good" to the boy that resulted fro* such relations. With Friedlander•s support he, under the na.-ne of his publisher, Bernhard Zack, sent out i»300 copies to heads of boys' schools, clergymen, Reichstag members, and others.
Then, in March, 1903, came the calamity that touched Mackay more than any other event in hi6 life. The remaining brochures and the two books (by Sagitta, ed.) were confiscated by the police and Zack was sued for publishing inmoral literature. Hirschfeld, a recognized scientist, had only a few years before been fined for sending out a 6imple ouestionalre on homosexualism, so that Mackay'6 troubles were to be expected. To Mackay, however, this failure to recognize his work a6 pure art and therefore untouchable wa6 the greatest 6hock of his life!
Zack, both a friend and an individualist anarchist, allowed the legal attack to fall on himself while Mackay bore the financial burden (6300 t,ark6>, thus preserving the real identity of Sagitta. But the writings of Sagitta which had been seized by the State were ordered destroyed.
SAGITTA'S FIRST work, entitled DIE NAMENLOSE LIEBE (the nameless love), appeared in 1906. His la6t work appeared in 1926, eight works in all. (11) During this time, and up until his death on May 16th, 1933, Mackay continued to write under hi6 own name. And while communists tried to discredit Mackay the anarchist by exposing him as Sagitta the homosexual, even many of John's individualistic friends felt uneasy about his 6exual preference and his attempts to vindicate his desires in print. During the court suit against Zack, Mackay wrote to hi6 friend and mentor, Benjamin R. Tucker:
I have decided now to break off all old acquaintances who don't care for me enough to try to understand ay love a6 I try to understand theirs. (12)
Even Tucker, radical feminist and free-lover, was not sympathetic with the contents of the Sagitta writings. His devotion to the cause of free speech and 6exual liberty had led him to publish Whitman's LEAVES OF GRASS.in defiance of the Comstock Laws, and Wilde's BALLAD OF READING GAOL, while the author was serving a prison sentence for homosexuality. With the same loyalty to the cause and to hl6 old friend, Tucker remained Mackay'6 comrade.
In hi6 lonely struggle against society in defense of the nameless love, Mackay also found several nameless comrades who supported hi6 work. Calling themselves "Die hundert Sagittas" (the hundred Sagitta6), they provided the financial assistance once provided by Friedlander and, earlier, by Mackay's mother. Two of the work6 published with the aid of Die hundert Sagittas have been recently republished by the Mackay - Gesellschaft; they are FENNY SKALLER, originally published in 1913, and DER PUPPENJUNGE, originally published in 1926." (13)
FENNY SKALLER is the 6tory of a nan who attempts to provide love and protection for young male street prostitutes. Skaller (Mackay) ha6 a series of affairs with different boys stretching out over many years. Each attempt to rescue a boy from a life of hustling end6 with Skaller being taken advantage of by the hustler. He cannot change their ways. Society is to blame, eaye Sagitta, because it 6upresses a natural 6exual desire and drives it underground. In DER PDPPENJDNGE the State is not only bla-aed for producing prostitution, but it i6 also guilty of imprisoning a well-to-do young man for picking up one of these exploited boys and providing him vith love and a home. Mackay's descriptions of the life of 6treet prostitution most certainly came from the boys he himself befriended in the course of his life.
THERE IS much more to the strange 6tory of John Henry Mackay, and his Sagitta, than has been dealt with in this brief introduction. M06t of Mackay's works remain In the original German, with the exception of THE ANARCHISTS and a handful of poems. Two newly translated poems appear on the next Dage, comparing an early Mackay poem ?dth a later Sagitta poerr. The author, who placed nuch emphasis on poetic structure,would be pleased by the retention of the meter by the translator. In the next issue I 6hall trace the development of Mackay's anarchism. 10/24/77
FOOTNOTES
1 1966, Anchor Books, Doubleday&Co. Inc.
(now out of print)
2 Patterns of Anarchy, p.21
3 p.293; English translation originally published in 1391 by Ben1. R Tucker; reprint published in 1972 by Revisionist Press,GPO. Box 2009, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11202 (but at an outrageously high price)
4 Minus One #32, 1973. S.E. Parker, 136 Gloucester Terrace, London W.2. England pi0-13
5 First published in Nov. 1344, it caused a furor acong the Young Hegelian a radical philosophical group that included Feuerback, Marx, Engels, as well
as Stirner. Tucker brought out the first edition in 1907. It wa6 republished in 1963 by Libertarian Book Club, G.P.O. box 342 "Jew York, N.Y. It is available from LBC.
6 Germany's Poet-Anarchi6t , John Henry Mackay, 1972, Revisionist Pres6. Not only does author leave all german Quotations in ger-nan, the publisher charges a very high price of adr-ission.
7 The Anarchists, p.140-1.
S The Homosexual emancipation "overrent in Germany, 1975, Arno Press Nev: York, o.43.
9 Riley, 0.167.
10 Ibid. p.103-9
11 According to Riley, p.109, they are:
1906 Die namenlose Liebe. Eln Bekenntnis Prose
Wer sind wir? (Both published in Berlin) Verse
1908 Gehoer!—Nur einen Augenblick! (Berlin) Prose
1909 A-n Rande des Lebens (Berlin) Poems 1913 Die Bucher der nanenlosen liebe, one book
containing, besides the four above, the novel Fenny Skaller, and the play, Ueber die Stufen von Marnor. Published in Paris second edition in Holland,1924. 1926 Der Puopenjunge. Published in Holland Prose
12 Ibid. p. ni"
13 Der Puppenjunge, 1975; Fenny Skaller, 1977; Mackay-Gesellschaft, Auwaldstr-7, D-7500 Freiburg/Br. (Germany)
This illustration and the portrait of Carpenter a-e frorr E.Armand's L'UNIQUE. The dro in? of Mackay is found in Riley's book. The ooys on the front cover collate are fro"i DER EIGEV", courtesy of Jcrr.es D. Steak"!ey. - PubUoher
TWO OF JOHI HKHRT MACKAY'3 POEMS, written some twenty years apart, are here set forth. Like many of his po«u, these are written to youtha to whom he felt strongly drawn. And like aany European lovers, and anarchists, he writes "thou" Instead of the less-intimate "you". That our translator has oarrled Mackay's meaning, mood and meter from German into English oan be seen by those readers who have knowledge of both tongues.
The 1866 poem has a a lightsome charm.
But the 1909 poem has
strength and depth -
and more than a hint
of haunting
bitter
lonely
wisdom.
Prom Diohtungen
Duirfta melne Llppen pressen Einmal ioh auf deinen Mund, Allen Sohmsra wtfrd ioh vergessen, Alle Wonne wurd' mir kundl
D&rft1 in deinen Arm ich sinken Dnd geliebt von dir mioh sehn, W\£rde Sellgkelt ioh trinken,
Trinken -- und dann untergehnl « «
If but onoe I dared to set My lips upon thy mouth, I vow: Every grief I should forget, Every Joy I then should know)
If in thine arms I dared to sink And see myself beloved of thee, Of uttar bliss I then should drink And drink - then die full happilyl
Prom An Rande dee Labens
(1909)
Mit walehem Vort der Liebe soli ich nooh
Dich rufen, der du keine Antwort gibstT
Mit welohem Vort nochT...Ist vor dir Ja dooh
Bines wle alle — well du mioh nioht liebst.
Vergeblich alleI...Sinnlos — unerhort
Sind sle verschwenderisoh dahingestraut:
Kelns hat gerifcu-t dich, keines dich erfreutl
Der Liebe ungesahlte: alle, um
Dich su erwarmen, nahm ioh, verarmt und stumm,
Und rufe dioh mit keinem-keinem mehrl
Both of these poems of
JOHN HE WRY MAC KAY were done into English
by Erlo Thorndale 1977
■ith what word of love should I still call. Still call to thee although thou answerest not -Yet with what wordt Por thee, yea, after all.
One word is much like all. Thou lov'st me not. All vsin - and sinless and unheard Are they (my words) - all wasted, strewn about. Hot one had moved thee; none brought thee delight, I took, of love untold, all - all - to warm thee And left me poor and dumb, these words despite; With nothing nothing nothing more I call thee.
What, then, is our offense, being anarchists1 The word anarcht is denvcd from two Greek words an, signifying no. or without, and arche, government hence anarchy means no government. Consequently anarchy meant a condition of society which has no king, emperor, president or ruler of an> kind. In other words anarchy is the social administration of all affairs by the people themselves; that is to say, self government, individual liberty. Such a condition of society denies the right of majorities to rule over or dictate to minorities. Though every person in the wotld agree upon a certain plan and only one objected thereto, the objector would, under anarchy, be respected in his natural right to go his own way And when such person is thus held responsible by all the rest for the violation of the inherent right of any out how then, can injustice flourish or wrong triumph1 For the greatest good to the greatest number anarchy substitutes the equal right of each and ever)
°nf Al.btRTft PARSONS
Adolph Fischer
yet, freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying streams like a thunderstorm against the wind.
One can imagine that when John Henry Kackoy had lunch with Erraa Goldman in New York, they talked about the Haymarket Martyrs. The execution of four labor spokesmen on November 11,1887 turned Goldman towards anarchism; while one of Mackay'6 few stops in the U.S. was at the grave of these heroes. Although there was no evidence linking the anarchists to a bomb thrown at a squad of hostile policemen at a labor rally on May U• 1886, a biased jury delivered a verdict of guilty and the Judge sentenced three defendants to prison and five to the gallows. Ignoring international protest, the State murdered four of it6 victims, but was deprived of complete satisfaction by Loui6 Lingg who, on November 10 reclaimed the ownership of his own life with a dynamite cap.
Louis Lingg.
(The following is an excerpt fro» "Gays In the History of Anarchism", a talk by Ian Young at the Gay Academic Union Conference, Columbia University, November 1976.)
In the last century and the early years of this century, much of the political support for homosexual rights cane from the left. This was at a time when "socialise" was bifurcating into two distinct wings - anarchism, which was strongly Influenced by the ideals of the Rennaissance and of classical liberalise and Marxian or State Socialism, more Influenced by conservatism and absolutism.
As these two wings drew further apart, and especially after the Russian revolution and the Increasing authoritarianism of the Bolshevik regime, culminating in Stalinism, the more authoritarian socialists tended toward a conservative condemnation of homosexuality and to repression of gay people. More libertarian socialists on the other hand tended to support the gay causei and in this, some of the strongest champions of gay rights were anarchists.
In this presentation, I'd like simply to draw attention to a number of anarchists who were gay or who gave strong support to the cause of homosexuals. The first of these is Mikhail Bakunln, who is sometimes referred to as "the father of anarchism".
It is Bakunln's relationship with the young Sergei Nechaev that is pertinent here. In my opinion, it is a relationship that makes no sense unless it is seen in the light of Bakunln's homosexual attraction to the younger maDi
Nechaev was not an anarchist but am amoral young revolutionary who, on escaping from Russia in 1869, called on Bakunln in Geneva claiming to represent a powerful revolutionary organization within the Tsarist empire. Bakunln was immediately beguiled, both by the Idea of such am organization (Bakunln loved the very Idea of secret societies and even went so far as to become a Mason! ) and by the young rebel.
"I have here with me," he wrote to a friend, "one of those young fanatics who know no doubts, who fear nothing...believers without God, heroes without rhetoric." For Bakunln, as Michael Conflno put It, Nechaev was "Russian youth, Russia Itself."
S3
There followed a close political and personal associa. tion between the two until Bakunln's dislike of Nechaev'a cynical destructiveness overcame his attachment. Because of their closeness, some of Nechaev'a more draconlan writings have been attributed to Bakunln by opponents of anarchism (including Karl Marx), though scholarship has shown that the infamous "Catechism of the Revolutionary" was Nechaev*s work.
Nechaev wrote of turning people with money "into one's slaves", of blackballing liberals, and of destruction, "terrible, complete, universal and merciless". This was too much, even for Bakunln, who once jumped out of a carriage to help a peasant who was setting fire to a house.
There 1b no doubt Bakunln was Infatuated with Hechaev who* he called "ay rebel", "»J Boy", "my tiger cub", and when hie principles took hold again
and led him to hremk with Hechaev, he felt he had Bade a fool of hlaaelf. He wrote to Hechaev, "I had complete faith in you, while you duped ae. I turned out to be a complete fool. Thin la painful and shameful for a a&n of my age." And he denounced Nechaev*s manipulatory politics and personal behaviour.
"The truerevolutionary organisation," Bakunln wrote, "doea not foist upon the people any new regulations , orders, styles of life, but merely unleashes their will and gives wide scope to their self-determination and their economic and social organisation which must be created by themselves from below, and not from above."
"Still," he wtote, "I love you deeply and still love you...I wish not only to remain allied with you but to make this union even closer and firmer." But he insisted Nechaev abandon his schemes of deceit, terrorism and power. "The main thing for the moment," he wtote to Ogarev, " is to save our erring and confused friend."
Nechaev, however, refused to be saved. He was eventually extradited from Switzerland hack to Russia where he died after ten years solitary confinement (part of the time in chains) in the Peter and Paul Fortress. He refused to gain his release by betraying his fellow revolutionaries.
WE WERE THERE at the Aug.23 men-orlal to Sacco & Vanzetti, at the Hay 21 march to the supreme court, at the '76 & '77 Gay Pride rallies We're the NEW YORK GAY ANARCHISTS. Write: Jin Kernochan,2E,227 Columbus Ave. NY,MY 10023
RARE ANARCHIST LITERATURE
Laurance Labadle le the late 6on of Jo Labadle, Detroit's "gentle anarchist". By the time of hl6 death, Laurance had inherited and collected one of the finest libraries of Individualism, anarchism, and decentraliem. Those items not going to libraries are being made available to the public via 6ale and auction by mail. The collection includes first editions of Mackay, Spooner, Stirner, and Tucker; books and Journals by Borsodl and the de-centrall6t movement; pamphlets and booklets published by the Labadies; 6et6 and loose copies of various anarchist Journals including Tucker'6 Liberty. Send 2i*t postage for complete list to: Vark Sullivan 227 Columbus Ave. N.Y., N.Y. 10023.
LIBERTARIAN BOOK CLUB
Box 8t»2, G.P.O.
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10001
Lecture Series-1977-1978
Second Thursdays, October to May
7:30 P.M.
Workmen'6 Circle Center 369 8th Avenue, 29 Street New York City
Admission Free, All Welcome Discussion, Refreshments Books on Sale
October 13 - Paul Berman, "New Light
on B. Traven" November 10 - Prof. Otis E. Fellows
on Diderot December 8 - Samuel H. Friedman
"Reflections of Sixty Years" January 12 - Wanda Swieda, "Our New
Emigrees from Soviet Russia" February 9 - Film on Spain, with
commentary March 9 - Eric Gordon, "Anarchist
Movement in Brazil" (April, May to be announced)
f
To most victims of Western Civilization and many other states of collective self-delusion, 6ex is by far the most threatening subject there is. It alone evokes compulsive humor and involuntary physiological reactions (and not Just natural one6 like arousal, but also unnatural ones like blushing).
Sexual honesty is more threatening to powerful people than it is to powerless people. It is more threatening to the corporations who own the TV stations than is any sort of imaginable violence. It is less threatening to the people in the ghettos than to the people in the sub-erbs. That should tell U6 something about the reasons those who try to run society have for insisting that 6exual honesty not "corrupt" children, that it be equated with"filthV degraded with scorn and ridicule.
When we are alienated from our own sexuality it is much worse than being alienated from our own body—it is alienation from what is closer than breathing. It is alienation from one'6 own nervou6 system! It is loreover impossible for a man in our society to advocate radical ideas without being considered on the make. (Well I am generally on the -ake no matter what the subject under discussion and that I happen to no* be discussing sex is incidental to that fact). Many women who soeclallze in sexual liberation or erotic art are al60 but more subtly anticipated, second-guessed, and downgraded.
Meanwhile, the social arrangements which have prevailed in the past continue to endure against enormous outcries from all who are concerned with the ecology of the planet, the general standard of living or the speciesj the incredible ego games in which power freaks engage each other with little regard for the price in term6 of suffering and death caused to great masses of less powerful individual human being6. And the basic premise— despite much window dressing—that there is something about sex which immunizes it from rational examination— remains unchallenged.
I tell you thi6. Take it for whatever it is worth to you. A child who can be made to feel guilty about playing with his or her sex organs, can later be conned into anything from going to war to doing the housework without reward. KERRY THORNLEY
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m
LIBERTARIANS FOR GAY RIGHTS Tom Avery
.Vhen 'onita Bryant beran waging her carpaigr. to undo the D >.de County anti-discrinination ordinance, ahe succeeded in drawing national attention to the issues of gay rights. Political authoritarians, of course, failed to identify *he Individual rights involved, and whichever side of the battle they fought on (or rooted for) they ended by pushing some form of state coercion. Championiug an anti-statist approach, many libertarians threw themselves into the battle.
The 1977 national convention of the Libertarian Party passe- a resolution condemning Anita Bryant for her homophibic bigotry, and at the sar^e ti: e opposing the ordinance itself in that it furthered government power, he resolution is excerpted as follows:
"...the Libertarian Farty condemns the use of government power to promote /all/ forms of discrimination, including those directed against homosexuals and women...the Libertarian Party deplores the calculated incitement to hatred against homosexuals...the Libertarian Party condemns the efforts of s. Anita Bryant and her followers to create a climate of hatred against homosexuals, to continue the state oppression of gays and to extend it by banning homosexual men and women from teaching in public schools. While we did not, and do not now, support /the statist principle ofJ the ordinance...we unequivocally denounce the whipping up of anti-homosexual hysteria which is likely to lead to the infringement of the individual rights of homosexuals. \Ye demand that homosexuals be accorded those rights in full and irrediately."
—Adopted by the Libertarian Party
National Convention, Fan Francisco, July 17, 1977.
After a brief debate the above resolution was carried almost unanimously. This was not the first time the LP had faced up to the issue of gay rights. At the LP convention in iiew York City in 1975, one of the planks in the party's platform called for "the immediate cessation of state oppression of homosexual men and wor.en, that at last they be accorded their full rights as individuals." Since then the LP has published a position paper written by LP member Ralph Raico. "Gay Rights: A Libertarian Approach" calls for, among other things, "Repeal of legislation px-ohibiting unions between members of the same sex...An end to the collection by government agencies of data on the sexual preferences of individuals.. .Recognition of the right of a homosexual parent to be considered, for custody of his or her natural child...
About the same time, an activist group called Libertarians for Gay Rights was founded in California with Valerie Valrejean of Santa Monica as president. It was thanks to the efforts of LGR that the aforesaid resolution was passed at the San Francisco convention. LRG now publishes a monthly newsletter and already has a nu ber of local affiliates including one in Kew York City. LRG encourages any libertarian, male or female, gay or straigit, to join and become active in the struggle for the rights og gay people "so that at last they be accorded their full rights as individuals."
4 Bedford Street PO icx 6.1994
NY, 1 (.14 Los Anjeles Ca. 9Cl69
OAT RIGHTS AND THE TUB OP 3TATS
Erio Thorndale
Sinoe 1970 the thrust of the lesbian and gay struggle has been toward laws and law-making. The struggle that began with the happily lawless OLP was swiftly taken over by state-worshipers who look upon law-naklng as a reasonable means to freedom.
But law-naklng, when it Is not an overwhelming evil, is at best a wili-o'-ths-wisp, and no one has ever been able to show any rational grounds for it. All arguments for law-making have been found wanting; we look at them and behold webs of fallaoy.
To begin with, there Is the argument from superstition. "It Is the will of Tee-Hee." This is the argument from non-existence: the groundworks of law are the whims of some spook, such as the fanatio devil Jehovah. "The following are to be stoned to death or kept In olosets." An argument too frivolous for rational consideration. And yet It was upon this that Paul founded his guilt-fostering and bitterly antihomosexual ohristlan political power trip. The argument has long since withered. Only the polltioal power trip festers on.
Some other arguments for law-making are no less witless: arguments from foroe and power; from tradition and authority; from raeial purity and the mystique of the leader.
But some arguments, although mere rhetorical devices, are still in vogue, and for that reason we shall take a swift look at eaoh of them: majority rule; the prevention of ohaos; the common weal; the sooial contraot; and the oonsent of the governed.
Majority rule means that the 51# may cannibalize the 49% or look them in olosets - and that those who are left may then sunder into a new 51 and 49%, and so on. How this rhetorioal device can be taken seriously Is best left to sophists.
The prevention of ohaos means that thanks to governments there have never been wars, genocide, or the threat of blowing up the planet.
The common or p\it)X^c (^ood qoahs vhAtovor &nyon6 oo&iis it
to mean. It was for the public good that Massachusetts murdered Vanxettl and Sacco, and that thousands of anarchists were murdered by Trotsky and Lenin. It was for the public good that homosexual love was for so long stifled In closets. The publio good is an argument set forth by scoundrels for the robbery, enslavement, sacrifice and murder of people.
The social contract Is a rhetorical device made up of two words, of whioh the first - social - is meaningless, and the other - contraot - wrongly applied. Por a thing to be a oontract, it must be drawn up and agreed to. Who drew it up and who agreed to ltt No answer. How oan it be binding on those who do not agree to itt No answer.
The oonaent of the governed, aa a rhetorical device, is as witless as the others. Anarchists don't consent to be governed. More and mora lesbians and gay males don't consent to be governed. Who of sound mind would oonaent to be robbed, enslaved and murdered? If voting ware the yardstick of consent, there are far more people who do not oonaent to be governed than who do. But atill the lav-makers would have us believe that they speak for us; that unknown to us we have ohoaan them to work their robberies, enalavements and murdera; and that without said law-makers wa should be bereft of freedom and in lorry plight. Were ever mora outlandish Ilea put forth - and swallowedT
If there are no rational grounds for law-making, there oan be none for lav or the state. Whioh ia indeed the ease. Lesbian and gay anarchists have shown that it is demeaning to look to the state; that whatever may be thereby gained can be as readily taken away; and that to look to an apparatua that oan take away our rights ia an ezereiae in futility* To these truths ve oan now add that law-making, laws and the atata have no rational basis at all.
"But Comrade, you forgot a main argument for the state - the argument of the individual good."
The Individual, said Base Goldman, "is the fountainhead of all life and all valuea." But - as aha pointed out in a scathing indictment of the state - the interests of the individual and those of the atate are antagonistic. The state can ezist "only by training the Individual to respeot lav and order, and by teaching obedienoe, submission, unquestioning faith in the viadom and juatiee of government and, above all, complete aelf-saorlfioe when the state oonwmnda it*"
That ia what the state ia about. And while there la not a shred of rational argument to uphold so rife an evil, many would-be speakera for leabian and gay rights seam to look to the state aa if it - and not the individual - were the fountainhead of life and valuea. Such speakers are sometimes gruesome: "Homosexuala must have the same rights aa everyone else to kill
Vietnamese ohildren." And always irrelevant: "Make us a lav."
# « *
"Make us a mooncalf," the leaders did oall. And nobody heeded; nay no one at all. But pulled out the plug, and rub-a-dub-dub, And that was the end of the rotten old tub.
ANARCHISTS AND GAY RIGHTS
There nay be some anarchists who see the current pother over Anita Bryant as being rather peripheral, not really relevant to "the cause". If so, they probably think Bryant's only sponsors are the Florida orange growers. In fact, the "Save Our Children" drive is part of a carefully-planned, well-coordinated Christian-conservative campaign. The aim is conservative control of all state and federal governments in North America.
The coalition, organised into a number of groups, from the Conservative Caucus and the American Council of Christian Churches to the Ku Klux Klan and the White People's Committee to Restore God's Laws, consists mainly of the remains of the Goldwater, Reagan and Wallace forces. After four unsuccessful attempts to capture the presidency, the conservatives have decided they must change their strategy. Their new plan is one of martialling support around a number of political and social issues (anti-ERA, anti-"pornography", anti-gays, anti-abortion, anti-busing, legalized Laetrile, conversion of Jews to Christianity), then, when the animals are howling at full volume, sweeping conservative candidates into state and federal legislatures.
The drive against gay rights and the scapegoating of homosexuals (Anita Bryant has even blamed us for droughts and earthquakes!) Is a crucial part of the conservative coalition's strategy to appeal to the most savage and mindless elements, put their own people in control, and end civil rights in America.
The strategy is working. Conservative victories have been won not only in Dade County but in state and federal legislatures and in the Supreme Court. In August of this year, some 1500 people, whipped into near-hysteria by Roman Catholic priests and the local press, marched through the streets of Toronto (usually a relatively civilized city) and demanded, among other things, the extermination of homosexuals. Physical attacks on gays increase, while the local papers inveigh against "fags" and call on the community to "send the queens scurrying back to their gutters."
One particularly useful conservative tactic has been to constantly link homosexuals with so-called "pornography" and with "child molestation" and "child abuse" (most of which is in reality Inflicted by parents). This technique was used to effect by the Nazi pamphleteer Julius Streicher, against the Jews. It is interesting, too, that the conservative campaign against "pornography" has found an ally in the feminist movement - a working alliance ratified at a New York meeting of feminist luminaries including Susan Brownmiller, Gloria Steinera, Robin Morgan and Lea Fritz. (New York'6 Lesbian Feminist Liberation has refused to join protests against Anita Bryant, contending that it is "sexist" to demonstrate against a woman!)
It should be clear that the gay fight is an important one for anarchists. But what attitude should anarchists take toward attempts to have the government regulate private behavior, to force private Individuals to hire or rent to gays? Some "libertarians", opposing government coercion on principle and looking no further, would apparently have been happy to work alongside Christian conservatives and against the gay housing and employment ordinance in Dade County. On the other hand, some anarchists feel that a libertarian principle must be sacrificed in such cases in order to fight the conservatives.
The position taken by the Libertarian Party i6, I think, the correct one, strongly opposing the conservative forces, and demanding immediate granting of full rights to gays, while not supporting legislation against private discrimination. (It remains to be seen what action, if any, the L.P. will take to
back up its pro-gay resolutions.)
What then should be the tactics for the future? It is clear that agitating for ordinances prohibiting private discrimination against gays (often in areas where severe laws punishing homosexuality are still on the books) is a poor and foolish policy, the more so as it allows the civil rights of a minority to be voted on by the majority - a situation that plays Into the hands of the conservatives, who will always use the most emotional scare tactics ("homosexuals will ravage our kids with impunity if this ordinance 16 passed!"). The best way to fight private discrimination is by concerted action and pressure by gays - not on government, but directly, on the source of the discrimination.
Not only was the Dade County ordinance misguided to bejcln with, but the gay effort against repeal was effectively sabotaged by highly paid New York carpetbaggers who prevented leafleting, zaps, rallies, llason with Black community, exposure of the Ku Klux Klan's ties to the Bryant forces, and so on. These tactics would have been too threatening to the moderates, and to the Democratic Party political machine.
Anarchists should do all they can to see that there are no more Dade Counties -primarily by seeing that the battle for gay rights and a libertarian society is not diverted by the liberals as it was all along the line In Florida.
We should be concentrating! first, on repeal of all anti-gay laws, including la«6 against gay Immigration, child custody, adoption and so onj second, on the crucial Issues that have been largely skimmed over by the gay movement so far -prison reform, the school system, the hustling situation, runaways (and the savage "harboring" laws), the agedj third, on gay self-defense, on an individual and on a group basis. All these are Important issues, and more than enough to keep us busy.
Finally, we should have no Illusions about the alas of our enemies. In front of me, 1 have a magazine Issued by followers of Anita Bryant. Some of its headlines and captlonsi "Save Our Children From Homosexuals", "Jews Fire Anita Bryant for Opposing Gays", "Will Your Child Be Their Next Victim?", "Homosexual Scum" and (inevitably) "Cas Gays".
- Ian Young
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NEW YO#K — At it* 36th gtotral conference the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) hat taken o stand In favor ol gay right*. The organization was on* of the major fore** In American labor until the eorly 20s when it was led by now legendary figures like Joe Hill and Big Bill Haywood
In its Odob«r statement. the organization resolved that the IWW recognizes the current crusode ogainst the rights of homosexuals as another ottock on the rights of oil working people We support the efforts to defend homosexuals ond bisexuols ogainst these attacks, ond support the inclusion of sexual-preference protection in the non discrimination clauses of union controcts '
LOAF-WARDBNS AND OOATS
Dora Hesse
Of the two main organised orime syndicates - ohuroh and state - many anarohists choose to fight the latter and forget the former. But it la the former that spawns sexism & homophobia - and does so by means of a word-formula or inoantation: "it's against the will of the lord god: we believe in the lord god; god is good." And sometimes a half-baked baptist will add, "god and good are the same word."
I look to English etymology and find that the word lord comes to us from Oldest English (OE) hlaf-weard, meaning loaf-warden or keeper of the household bread. To believe in a loaf-warden seema rather silly.
I further find that god and good have nothing to do with eaoh other. 19th century scholars1~7showed that the vowel-dlfferenoe is all-important, so that the OE words for god and good can in no way be linked. The rift between the two is overwhelming, thanks to vowel-difference.
This has led Thorn dale8 to the happy thought that god and goat are the same word. In each the OE vowel is the same: aw as in gawd. (This is the vowel that is halfway between o and a; many OE dual spellings bear witness to it: land-lond; hand-hond; stand-stond; long-lang; from-fram; etc.) And not only is the vowel the same - gawd is gawt -but the OE vowel-shift in the feminine of each is the same,
A dazzling theory. The aw vowel is found in hundreds of OE words: horn; holpen; lar(lore); brad(broad) and so forth. OE spelling wasn't over-striot; the soribes, laoking a rune for aw, made do with o & a. Daztllng. But a thought haunted me: if god is goat we should be able to show that t and d can shift into each other in English.
Grimm's Law shows this shift when you go from English into a kindred tongue. But within English It is no help. What to do? I set to work compiling lists. Lists of spelling variants: spelt & spelled; spilt & spilled; burnt ic burned. Lists of words in whioh, with time, t or d had shifted into each other, as: New E. oubit from Middle E. wolbode. And lists of t-d doublets (words that are etymologically the same): hat & hood; tap 4 dab; taut & towed; dirt & turd; settle and saddle; totter Sc toddle; tattle & twaddle. I left out the unproven (mud & smut; fed & fat) and the unlikely (flood & float; bred & brat). Within three years it was fully dear: god is goat.
To this, add the merry truth that goat-worship was widespread among primitive Europeans. And at last we understand what the chaps are mumbling about. Homophobes who would bring us back to the blight of Christianity are believers in a loaf-warden who is a goat. Likely a trained goat - for if it were not trained it would eat the loaf. As anarohlsts, we know that it would have to be the silliest of goats,
or it would not have allowed itself to be trained. gawt is gawd.
«
l,2.Bos*orth,J & Toller,N, Anglo-Saxon Diet., Oxford 1882. 3.Hall,RC, Concii Anglo-Saxon Diet., Cambridge 1891. 4.Mayhew,A, Old English Phonology, Oxforc 1891. S.Skeat,*, Principles of English Etymol., Oxford 1891. 6.Sweet,H, ,Hlst< o m?^Sound3» 1888. 7.Wright,T, Anglo-Saxon Vocab., London 1884.
-•Thorndale,E, Address to The English Phonology Soc.of N.America, Chicago 19^
PICKETT
GAY PEOPLE, under the Straight State, are sexual anarchists. Anarchism is a philosophy that is broader than the concerns of a narrow politics. Anarchism confronts ALL institutions that dictate and enforce how one shouli live. Since the main areas of constraint are the work-ethic, wedlock, the nuclear family, religion and the law, _ gays and lesbians are de facto an-archist; that is, against the arche of such 'normal' institutions. As homosexuality is one of the most feared and reviled of self-expressions, living one's life as Gay or Lesbian is a triumph and an affirmation of tte sovereignty of the individual, of one's basic right to self-determination.
OP COURSE THERE ARE the countless exceptions - those who live in closets of secrecy, those who are fearful, at inner odds with homosexual expression, reacting against their very nature, working to conserve oppressive institutions, trying to buy protection by suppressing their true selves. And there are those who by word and action say "I'm only different in this one small way" and imagine that they can validate their personal worth by upholding all other forms of oppression while turning their bedrooms Into closets. But even the most closeted person knows of the secret inner rebellion waiting for the right moment to express itself.
THE ONLY PURPOSE of life is in living it. We pursue 'happiness', whatever that means to us as individuals. We try to attain all the things (material, spiritual, artistic) that represent happiness to ourselves. We choose these goals, just as we choose to live. But our goals sometimes change, and in the course of our lives we may have many different and conflicting goals. Goals therefore do not aeem to be the reason for living; life does seem to be the reason for living.
THE WORK-ETHIC is the notion that work is in and of itself a fitting goal to which individual lives should be sacrificed. Until lately this notion was so much taken for granted that it had almost ceased to be recognizable, and only in recent years has it been weakening. We hope the trend continues. The value of and need for work is not the issue. Clearly work is necessary for survival and satisfaction. But the work-notion is something else altogether. Gay people, often more aware than others of situational and immediate values, are more likely to be, at least in consciousness, natural rebels against the inhuman determinism of the work-notion.
WEDLOCK IS one of the institutions that deny that sexual pleasure is valuable and good in and of itself. But a characteristic of gays, far more than of others, has been to value sexual pleasure for its own sake and to recognize that neither heterosexual marriage nor any other 'exclusivity of two' need have any monopoly on it.
THE NUCLEAR FAMILY, abetted and institutionalized by state and religion, provides the future drudges for the factories, the future soldiers for military expansion, and the future souls for god's heaven. To maintain the family, parents must sacrifice for their children, often leaving to themselves little more than bare survival, in time their children will beget children and all who are involved will delude themselves into imagining that by getting offspring they will gain some kind of mystical immortality that will make their sacrifices and miserable struggles worthwhile. But far from finding' a mythical heaven in a mythical future, the
heterosexual breeders have brought us to the hell of overpopulation in the here and now. In the viciou3 cycle of heterosexual reproductions, the present, the world we know, is contimiously sacrificed and destroyed.
LESBIANS AND GAY MO*, if true to their nature, will have none of this. Life can be enjoyed without the burden of unneeded and often xinloved children. Self-expression and fulfillment are found in this world, not in the mythical next. Family is no longer a biologic chain of necessity. A gay family is formed among one's loved friends - among one's spiritual amf sexual companions - often crossing lines of race and class. By redefining family as a circle of loving companions, gay people are truly revolutionary. Instead of society and sacrifice, there are free individuals defining and living their own lives in this, the true, present and only world that we can know.
Government creates, and the governed pemit, the existence of fictitious "persons" called corporations. These privileged collectives control the natural resources and financial opportunities upon which we as working individuals TiUst depend for our lives and liberty. Corporations are State, not private, institutions; and it is naive or hypocritical for libertarians to talk about a corporation's rights of Tree association and private discrimination.
As anarchists, we contend that little will be gained thru anti-di6crimination la.-s; the Establishment turns all reforms to its own advantage. The struggle of <^ay people is part of a larger struggle against all authority - against the subjection of the non-invasive individual to an externa) will. The destruction of authority is an ongoing process; and until we repeal ALL laws favoring particular groups, who can righteously proclaim that homosexuals should not use the legal system to protect themselves against evils created by the le.<ral system? And should we listen to those who fear a straight backlaeh against "■ays in response to gay rights legislation? What ray or 1esbian isn't afraid? But ',e have cowered under the lash of Judeo-Christianity for 2000 years. It is time for "jay people to rise up and, if necessary, lash back!
As ray taxpayers, we object to being forced into supporting an "education" syste- that attempts to recruit young gays and lesbians into the ranks of straight society. Gay children need homosexual adults air.on^ their teachers, to counteract the heterosexual role rodel6 forced upon then. Until the education monopoly is abolished, gay teachers will have to demand equal employment opportunity in their profession. It is exactly this demand that Anita Bryant has made the crux of her attack upon gay rights. She anpeals to the right of parents to control their children's education. But 'hat about the rirhts of children, vho are legally innrisoned by the family and the "educational" system? Even private schooling is not a voluntary association as far as children are concerned.
Those ?ho refuse to attack the "private"oppression of legally empowered educit-iona1 and economic institutions ought to rerrembcr the ">00,000 homosexuals rurdered by the Third Reich. Do they -/ant their silence to b< taken a6 tacit agreement with the homo-cidal oronaranda of yet another power hunrry bigot? Do they join with those who want to force uron all of us the white heterosexual nuclear fa-nily in order to strengthen the Vation State?
Mark Sullivan —Jin Kernochan