and ain't i a woman?: Stand together for lesbian rights
Western Australia's laws regarding gay men and lesbians — some of the most repressive in the Western world — have been challenged by a working body established by the state Labor government.
The attorney general's Ministerial Advisory Committee into Lesbian and Gay Law Reform put 47 recommendations to the WA parliament on November 9. These include: increasing access to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and adoption programs for lesbians and single women; legally recognising homosexual relationships; and equalising the age of consent with that set for heterosexual people.
On November 8 a coalition of 191 church groups held a 2000-strong rally calling for people to "stand together for marriage and children".
The Reverend Barry Hickey, Catholic archbishop of Perth, told the rally that "the same sex union is not the same as the union between a husband, wife and children", adding, "It's this unit of society which makes society strong".
Hickey's high-pressure lobby group has been flooding Australian Labor Party offices with letters opposing the law reform, claiming the laws will encourage "sodomy" and will put "our families at risk".
Feminists should support the implementation of the recommendations, and all campaigns for gay and lesbian rights, because such struggles will help further the fight against sexism.
Legal equality for lesbians and gay men, like struggle for the liberation of women, challenges the family units that capitalist society is composed of. Most families have a gendered division of labour — women take care of the bulk of the domestic duties, childcare and care for the elderly while men are the primary breadwinners.
Gay and lesbian sexual relationships contradict the sexual morality that justifies the heterosexual family system. So conservative pro-family forces seek to suppress homosexual relationships.
Lesbian women face discrimination because they are women, and also because of their sexual orientation. This discrimination is reflected in government policy, such as restrictions on gaining access to IVF treatment.
The irony is that while heterosexual women are being actively encouraged through federal government policies, including the "first child tax rebate", to get married, stay married, bear children and stay at home, lesbians are being denied the right to become mothers.
This anti-lesbian campaign is an attempt to regain the moral and legal high ground for heterosexual family form in which women are socially defined primarily as wives and mothers.
Lesbians gaining access to IVF was a major concern of the "standing together for marriage and children" rally. Another of these rightwingers' worries is the proposal to grant gay and lesbian couples the right to adopt children.
Every undermining of a woman's right to choose whether or not, when and how to bear children is an attack on all women — whether lesbian, heterosexual or bisexual.
The freedom of lesbians to bear children (or not), to have access to public health services and benefits, and to make free and informed choices about how they live are fundamental women's rights. We need to stand together for the right for all to have consensual sexual relationships without persecution.
BY JANE ARMANASCO
[Jane Armanasco is a co-organiser of the Perth branch of the socialist youth organisation Resistance.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 28, 2001.
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