Subject: Gay Rights Victory/Supreme Ct on Colorado Amendment 2
From: NY Transfer News Collective <[email-masked]>
Date: 23 May 1996 19:47:39 GMT

-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 30, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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GAY RIGHTS VICTORY

By Kristianna Tho'Mas

The lesbian and gay community won a tremendous, historic
victory May 20 when the United States Supreme Court ruled
that Colorado's anti-gay Amendment 2 was unconstitutional.

The decision essentially rebuffed the right wing's effort
to single out gay people as ineligible for civil rights. As
such, it was a step forward in the class struggle and a win
for all oppressed and working people everywhere.

The ruling marks a major advance in the fight for lesbian
and gay rights. Although it is a defensive victory--setting
back an attack on civil rights rather than confirming the
rights themselves--it is still a turning point in the long
march toward equality.

	Much as the court's 1954 ruling in the Brown vs. Board
of Education school-desegregation case both reflected the
power of the civil-rights movement and  helped pave the way
for it to pick up steam, this ruling can is a result of and
can provide a boost to the gay movement. As activists at
celebration rallies around the country said, "Now we can
push forward and win our rights."

Workers World Party presidential candidate Monica
Moorehead issued a statement congratulating the lesbian,
gay, bi and transgender community. She said, "It is your
many years of struggle--in the streets and in the faces of
the ruling class and its hired bigots--that won this
victory."

What prompted this concession to an oppressed group? Above
all, it was the strength and power of the movement over the
last 30 years.

And it was fear of the movement taking to the streets in
vast numbers once again. That prospect worried the ruling
class enough for the court, made up mostly of Reagan/Bush
appointees, to issue a pro-gay decision.

By a strong majority--six to three--the high court
overturned an amendment to Colorado's state constitution.
Passed in a 1992 referendum, the amendment would have barred
the state and any local government from outlawing anti-gay
discrimination.

It had never been enforced because of legal challenges.
But when the Colorado Supreme Court overturned Amendment 2,
Democratic Gov. Roy Romer sided with the forces of reaction,
appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the anti-gay
measure.

BLOW TO REACTION

The right wing was confident it would win and could
continue using anti-gay referenda, a favorite tactic in
recent years, to foment homophobia and divide people.

Instead, legal experts say the high court's finding--that
the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection applies to
gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people--will be
a real blow to the anti-gay forces.

In fact, this is the Supreme Court's first ruling ever
supporting any aspect of gay rights. In every other case--
including those involving the Pentagon's ban on gay
soldiers--the court has always ruled for oppression.

The timing was very interesting. It came not only in an
election year, but just 10 days before the start of Pride
celebrations around the country--a month of outpourings of
the lesbian and gay community.

If the verdict had affirmed anti-gay discrimination, would
there have been rebellions in the streets of every major
city? That's what happened 10 years ago, after the infamous
Hardwick decision.

In that case, the court upheld Georgia's "sodomy" law,
ruling that states have the right to make homosexuality a
crime. Reaction was swift and furious. Thousands took to the
streets in cities around the country.

This time the court sought to prevent another such
outpouring.

Of course, the extreme right wing of the bourgeoisie
remains committed to war against lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgendered people. But the court indicated that another
view prevails in the ruling class, at least for now.

Given the deepening crisis facing workers and oppressed
people with jobs disappearing and wages dropping, goes this
view, it wouldn't be prudent to provoke an upsurge in the
struggle. There is now relative social stability, and the
bourgeoisie wants to keep it that way.

NO THANKS TO CLINTON

Well over 30 years of political struggle led to the
ruling.

It did not emerge from the hallowed halls of the Supreme
Court. Rather, its roots are in the streets of Greenwich
Village, where the 1969 eruption of the Stonewall Rebellion
gave rise to the modern gay movement.

Still, many people were shocked at the ruling. Pointing to
the Supreme Court's generally reactionary character, and the
extremely right-wing make-up of its current roster in
particular, some had assumed an anti-gay ruling was a
foregone conclusion.

The surprise should remind everyone that whoever holds
office--in Congress, the White House, or the courts--it's
the mass struggle that is decisive.

The 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision came during
the Republican Eisenhower administration at the height of
the Cold War. The 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling legalizing
abortion came on President Richard Nixon's watch, from a
conservative court. Like those decisions, the Colorado
ruling was also borne of struggle.

The strength of the movement--the fight for gay rights
that the right wing has never been able to turn back--wrote
this ruling. Moorehead said: "This community of fighters for
liberation deserves all the credit for demanding what is
right.

"President Bill Clinton, in contrast, deserves no credit."

Workers World Party's John Peter Daly, a longtime gay
activist who is running as the Peace and Freedom candidate
for Congress in California's 29th district, noted: "Clinton
ordered his Justice Department not to file a friend-of-the-
court brief siding with the gay community in the Colorado
case.

"This was only one betrayal in a long series--from his
reversal on gays in the military to the latest outrage, his
support of a federal ban on same-sex marriage."

`CLOSER TO OUR GOAL'

The majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy was
strongly worded. It upheld the legal argument that--in the
absence of any federal law banning anti-gay discrimination--
the Constitution's Equal Protection clause must be invoked.

Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay-rights
organization that was co-counsel on the case, proclaimed the
ruling a major step forward. Lambda's Suzanne Goldberg said
the decision "brings us closer to securing the fundamental
rights of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals."

At a May 20 news conference at the Lesbian and Gay
Community Center in New York, Goldberg called the ruling
"the most important victory for the lesbian and gay civil
rights movement."

On May 20 and 21, victory rallies took place in Los
Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Houston and other cities.

                         - END -

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