05.11.1998

Bourgeois morality

While the establishment has adopted a partial acceptance of homosexuality, there is a long way to go before there is full equality

The discussions stimulated by the assault and robbery suffered by former Welsh secretary Ron Davies after his ‘walk’ on Clapham Common continue to develop in predictable ways in the bourgeois press.

In the downmarket tabloids, prurient speculation and unreliable accounts by men claiming to have seen Davies at various unofficial gay meeting places sell newspapers. But this has no relevance to the crime against Davies or the question of whether he should have been forced to resign. In the broadsheets, the debate has moved beyond Davies to the problems the Labour Party in Wales will have finding a suitable replacement as future first minister of the new Welsh Assembly; and more importantly the extent to which politicians should be permitted to keep their personal life private, including details of their sexuality. Trade secretary Peter Mandelson was outed as a homosexual (not for the first time) on BBC 2’s Newsnight programme by a former Tory MP, Matthew Parris. The BBC subsequently issued a much ridiculed edict to its employees ordering them not to allow discussion of Mandelson’s sexuality on air.

According to The Guardian (October 29), as “Mandelson has never been guilty of hypocrisy in his statements on sexuality or the family”, whether he is gay or not “is a matter for him and for no one else … Without exposing an element of hypocrisy the ‘outing’ of politicians is simply a gross invasion of privacy.” The contrary position, held by Outrage activists such as Peter Tatchell, is that each decision to remain in the closet represents a tacit acceptance of the inferior status of gays and thus delays the achievement of full equality. In the eyes of Outrage, all closet gays in public life are colluding with oppression and are therefore legitimate targets for outing. In our view, this approach goes too far in sacrificing the rights of the individual to the interests of the ‘community’. However, we share the annoyance felt by gay activists at the attitude of conservatives who accept gays so long as they live in monogamous relationships, but condemn those who are promiscuous, or strangely become uncomfortable when gays ‘flaunt’ their sexuality.

We regard outing as a tactical question. As communists, whose morality and programmatic demands are founded on the achievement of collective liberation, where the maximum opportunity for each person to fully develop their unique social-individuality is recognised, we support all moves to defend and advance homosexual rights. We are for equality. We are opposed to the anti-human prejudice of religious or other bigots, who portray sexually active gays as ‘sinful’ and ‘deviant’. In general we say sexuality should be a personal matter. However, when discrimination against gays is advocated for opportunist reasons by those who are secretly gay themselves, we agree that it is quite justified to expose their hypocrisy.

Reactionary opposition to gay rights is often based on the claim that they undermine the family, the basic economic unit of capitalist society. The Labour government, of which Peter Mandelson is a leading member, has just published a consultation document putting forward suggestions on how to ‘strengthen’ the family, by which it means the conventional nuclear family of a married man and women raising children and possibly supporting other dependent relatives, such as elderly parents.

The similarities between New Labour thinking and the reactionary Tory ‘back to basics’ policy are clear. When the Tories vilify single parents, gays and other ‘deviants’, they often base their moralising on an appeal to Christianity and its ethos. They pretend that the reason they seek to impose a conventional moral code on society is simply that this code is right in accordance with some eternal value system, and any calculation of means and ends is secondary.

New Labour, however, does not obfuscate in such a way. It appeals to the selfishness of the comfortably off minority known as ‘middle England’. Rather than attack single parents as morally reprehensible, Blair’s spin doctors simply point to the welfare benefits many single parents need to support their children. New Labour advocates stable nuclear families because if working people can be made to bear the highest possible degree of responsibility for caring for their own children and old people, the lower will be the cost to the state. And by producing fewer teenage criminals, according to well publicised theories, these ‘conventional’ families cost the state less in the long term. For all Labour’s fine words about ‘support’, they are simply reflecting the fact that for capital, the nuclear family is the most cost-efficient way of reproducing labour power.

Tony Blair may have used his image as a family man to sell himself to the Labour Party and to the electorate, but, partly due to the efforts of gay rights activists, it is no longer impossible for an openly gay politician to reach the top of the bourgeois political hierarchy. Chris Smith, the culture secretary, being an example. However, full equality has not been achieved for gays in social life. Many people feel compelled to lead a double life out of fear. They hide their inclinations, marry, have children and opt for guilt-ridden secret liaisons or prostitutes. When they are found out their whole world comes crashing down.

This is what seems to have happened to Ron Davies, who was leaned on to resign when he was subjected to blackmail threats by a man he had approached who then robbed him. According to the Daily Mirror, when Davies was appointed as an opposition whip in 1985 he was subjected to routine vetting by the Special Branch and MI5, which alleged that he was gay (November 2). The then leader of the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, was warned that Davies was vulnerable to blackmail and thus presented a security risk. If Davies led a double life in which he secretly sought sex in situations in which he was certain to be at risk of attack, he could not benefit from the partial acceptance of gays by the establishment. Neither does that acceptance extend to prostitution.

The full story of Ron Davies’s misadventures has yet to be revealed. He has attacked the press for intruding into his private life, saying: “I have never, ever in my life moralised about other people. I have always taken the view that public figures as well as private figures have the right to a private life, provided that doesn’t intrude on their public duties.” This is a fine sentiment, but unfortunately for Davies commentators were quick to point out that he is himself guilty of hypocrisy in saying it. In 1995 he attacked Tory minister Ron Richards when Richards was accused of adultery, and in 1996 he was forced to apologise after saying that Prince Charles was not fit to be king after his divorce was announced.

The Ron Davies affair has highlighted three particular aspects of bourgeois morality in Britain. First, the increased acceptance and incorporation of open gays. Second, the continued guilt associated with homosexuality and the subsequent dangerous double life forced on many people. Thirdly, the absence of a democratic movement from below to challenge New Labour’s conservative moral agenda.

Mary Godwin