15.06.1995

Fawning Star

THE BIGOTS in the British army won another victory last Wednesday, when three servicemen and one servicewoman failed to overturn the ban on homosexuals in the armed forces.

Nevertheless Lord Justice Brown did give the MoD a bit of a slap on the wrist, saying that “the tide of history” was turning against them. The armed forces is deviating from mainstream bourgeois politics, which is gradually incorporating gay rights - like anti-racism - into its agenda.

The reasons presented by the MoD for maintaining the ban on homosexuals did indeed sound like something out of the Stone Age: gays would diminish unit effectiveness and endanger the in loco parentis role that the services play in relation to recruits under 18.

The ‘official communist’/Labourite Morning Star loftily proclaimed, “The judges in yesterday’s test case were correct to refuse to consider lifting the ban because it is a matter for parliament.” (June 8)

This is parliamentary cretinism combined with respectful subservience to bourgeois legality. Parliament refused to “equalise” the age of consent for gays, which remains at the age of 18.

As communists, we believe that it is parliamentary democracy itself which is standing against “the tide of history” and hence needs to be swept away at the first possible opportunity.

Eddie Ford