Letters to Lambda
Revolutionary Relief
Dear Lambda,
As a gay person who believes that
only concerted, popular change
through revolution is the final,
long-term answer to oppression, I
am increasingly disillusioned by
the various sectarian left parties
that seem more concerned with ex
pounding their special brands of
"revolutionary theory" than they
are with arriving at creative solu
tions to the very real problem of
entrenched late-20th century capi
talism.
This refusal to come forward
out of the past, out of the realm
of mental abstractions, can be seen
in the position of such parties on
gay rights. Either the party is
hostile to us, seeing in us the
nadir of bourgeois decadence, or
it is condescendingly pro-gay rights.
Take the Revolutionary Communist
Party. They have a confusing argu
ment that being gay is somehow a
pernicious outcropping of capital
ist sexism, and that once the revo
lution comes gayness will be elimi
nated because society will be non-
exploitative.
For adherents to this party, being
gay is a sickness or perversion; yet
the party (being as numerically weak
as it is, unable to attract broad
popular support) has indicated it
would be willing to work with us on
"common issues." Then, will we be
exterminated?
There are groups like the
Socialist Workers’ Party, who have
apparently taken up the struggle for
gay rights as part of their "plat-
fona"—but only about a decade ago,
and after bitter intra-party con
troversy .
Not only do these parties lack a
comprehensive understanding of what
it really is to be gay, but they
also lack an over-all class analysis
that takes into account modern socio
economic conditions. Hence the con
fusion they run into when they "con
front" the "gay issue," That’s just
the point—rather than offer us a
down to earth insight into the op
pression we face, they instead
either dismiss our oppression alto
gether or turn, it into some kind
.of isolated, abstract "issue" to be
seized upon, advertised and flaunted.
^rhe fact is that gay people,
rather than .being examples of
"capitalist decadence," have been
harassed and oppressed since long
before the advent of capitalism.
The fact is, most parties that sup
posedly stand for social revolution
do not address our oppression ade
quately.
In the United States, social
revolution is not going to be accom
plished by either traditional elec
toral politics or armed struggle.
There are no easy answers here;
"material dialectics" have gotten
too complex for that. Many people
are beginning to feel that part of
the solution may lie in "grassroots
substitution"—that is, in the
revolutionary development of popu
lar Institutions from the bottom
up: institutions (as non-
institutional as possible) that
will inexorably start to replace the
structures of our present society.
And, concomitant with this growth
must be uncompromised unity of all
oppressed peoples on an inter
national level.
Sincerely,
XTC, Triangle Area
Support For Health
Dear Lambda;
In both animal and human studies,
there is evidence that suggests that
the presence of significant others
during times of stress has ameliora
tive (beneficial) effects on the
person who is under stress.
In the 1979 Surgeon General’s
Report on Health Promotion and Dis
ease Prevention, Beatrix Hamburg, MD,
and Marie Killilea review the find
ings on stress and social support,
(Letters, cont, p. 8)
Lambda Collective
Staff
Arthur
Elizabeth E.
Lee Mullis
(Lorien Marcher
P. Mantis
Paul Miles
Randy Woodland
Contributors
Allan Troxler
Ian
Mitchell
Patty Carlisle
Stefanie
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Special thanks to the Newman Center
for use of printing facilities.