By Desmond Rutherford (Adelaide, Australia) MAR 9 | With much respect for the tremendous work Tim Trent has done in raising consciousness and discussion on the Gay Liberation Front: Manifesto, articles, I would put forward a different view on his Part 5.
At 66, I was just 27 when it was published, and remember those times with all the youthful clamour of those event filled emotional days. As such I ask for your indulgence in the expansion of the manifesto which I readily admit goes beyond its original intentions, or does it?
We are mundane? Mundane? Not the conclusion I have reached. To proclaim the original manifesto as having "lost the plot," is to overlook the cultural climate in which the manifesto's statement was made as a reaction to, and derivation of the "Peace, Love and harmony" movement of the 1960s and in particular to that movement's revolution failing at the hands of the 'Establishment.'
By 1971, the Counterculture revolution was under attack, (some would say in its death throes.) Whether that was engineered by conspiratorial reaction by the fearful reigning status quo, or simply by self indulgent drug use, the manifesto clearly attempted to show, and protect Gay Liberation from being caught up in the attacks on the Counterrevolution through reference to "present controllers are therefore dedicated defenders of things as they stand..." and, "support society's image of 'normal' man and woman." (Seem familiar?)
The manifesto patently describes 'the normal' characterisation of gay people as something which needs to be addressed when it stated, "we are characterised as scandalous, obscene perverts; as rampant, wild sex-monsters; as pathetic, doomed and compulsive degenerates; while the truth is blanketed under a conspiracy of silence."
The manifesto, and in particular this part of it is not saying, “poor us,” it was one of the results of the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, including the musical plays, HAIR and Man of La Mancha, antiwar demonstrations and protest songs, and directly born from the Stonewall riots.
I think the manifesto's authors desired to stand Gay Liberation apart from the "selling out" that was fast being used by the 'Establishment' to dismantle the Counterculture. Gay Liberation needed to distance itself from the failing, 'freedom, peace loving Counterculture of the 1960s' even though it had spawned it, enabled it, and encouraged it. The Counterculture had embraced individual liberty to the point where on many occasions you didn't know which sex you had brought home until you unwrapped it, and then made love to it anyway. If it wasn’t what you wanted, you could always sit down together and discuss the meanings of the universe. No opportunity to discover was wasted, or so it seemed.
There was too the perception that the intellectual gay organisations had been too slow to promote Gay Liberation, and that they were not impressed with the stereotypical members of the Gay under-culture being the ones who had confronted the police at Stonewall.
Perhaps the Manifesto statement’s real disappointment is that it can lead to the desire for assimilation of LGBT people as ordinary, or 'normal’, or an assertion that we are as mundane as mainstream society wants all individuals to consider themselves. One of the great taboos in nearly every society is that individuals shall not realise their own liberty, their birthright, their own power and their own creativity to live and express life through fresh, untarnished and unindoctrinated eyes.
It is also worth remembering that prior to the mid 20th Century, as far as I can research, all cultures have at some time reversed laws on LGBT freedoms.
Where this manifesto and this portion of it should lead us, is not towards a desire for assimilation or even integration, but to a much wider, deeper discussion on what we as individuals are willing to do to create a culture, a world culture where mundane becomes another unacceptable label, where mediocrity is laid waste, and every individual has had the opportunity to question the meaning of their existence, to in fact, realise if not fulfil their creativity. Just like most LGBT people have had to do for as long as we have sought to live in accord with our right to be whom we are in order to truly pursue our happiness without fear of intimidation. Too many of us have had to suppress our nature to be accepted by others as well as by ourselves. Too many of us have ended up loathing who we are, and far too many humans have never even known they could, should, explore life, “Across the Universe,” however quixotic that may sound.
That means that young rebellious teenagers are correct when they proclaim that they don't want to be told what they should do, whom they should be, or what they should think, or whom they may love. That doesn't mean that they want to abandon history, or don't want to learn what has been discovered in the past, or not plan for a future, but it does mean they want the liberty to discover life in all its forms for themselves, and in that we are not mundane, but vigorous. In that desire for freedom, in that liberty, we are not alone; we are the same, homogeneous.
Gay Liberation has for so many of us, regardless of our sexuality, been the beginning of realising an inalienable human freedom beyond the right of our individual sexual expression– the right to be aware of who we are.
No wonder so many cultures, religions and governments do not want us to be liberated, but that is their agenda, isn't it?
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