Don’t boycott the postal survey, build a mass Yes campaign

Lisbeth Latham

Despite widespread community opposition and the Senate's repeated rejection of a plebiscite the Malcolm Turnbull government is persisting with a non-binding postal survey on the question of removing the current definition of marriage from the Marriage Act and replacing it with an unspecified definition that will provide for marriage equality in some unspecified form.

At least one court challenge has already been announced and among members of the LGBTQI community a debate has opened as to whether supporters of marriage equality should boycott the survey.

The call for a boycott reflects justified anger and frustration at the government’s continued refusal to follow public opinion and pass legislation to provide for marriage equality, as well as a rejection of the legitimacy of the proposed process.

The most prominent advocate for a boycott was former High Court Justice Michael Kirby who called the postal ballot “irregular, unscientific — I’ll take no part in it” and told Radio National on August 10 “I feel as a citizen I’m being treated as a second-class citizen”. He has since reversed his position and now says he will participate.

Is a boycott the best approach in the present situation?

It is important to note that the question of boycotting a vote, or in this case a survey, is a tactical question, not a strategic question. A decision around the tactic may flow from your strategy, but it should also flow from questions such as the balance of forces, the likely support for a boycott and where your campaign will flow following a boycott or participation in the process.

While it is important to note that the plebiscite and survey are unnecessary and cynical moves aimed at delaying any vote on a marriage equality bill, this is irrelevant to whether the survey should be boycotted.

Also irrelevant is the fact that the survey is illegitimate and the abusive intentions behind the survey. These factors are relevant to whether the survey is necessary prior to any vote on legislation occurring or whether it should go ahead, but they aren't relevant to how we respond to an actual process.

We should also not be under any illusion that if the government were to announce tomorrow that it would introduce legislation to parliament and allow a free vote from its members, that this would somehow avoid a toxic homophobic campaign by the right.

In France, before the 2013 vote on equal marriage, the right mobilised millions of people against marriage equality, and they continued to mobilise large numbers against marriage equality even after it became law. These mobilisations have helped contribute to an increasingly homophobic atmosphere in France over the past four years.

Happily, on this occasion, Australia is not France and the right wing in this country is not as vigorous or capable of mobilising. But as anyone involved in reproductive rights campaigning knows, the Australian right can still mobilise in toxic and obnoxious ways.

A decision by supporters of marriage equality to not participate in the survey process will not stop homophobic and transphobic attacks by the right; if anything a boycott campaign would encourage the right’s antics and rhetoric.

The key question as to how to engage with and respond to the survey is what will strengthen the campaign for marriage equality and for the broader rights of the LGBTQI community.

There is no doubt that boycotts can be effective mechanisms through which to undermine attempts by governments to legitimise their actions and to buttress their position. But, equally, boycott campaigns can backfire. This is because:

• Successful boycotts are difficult to achieve
• Abstentions can be difficult to interpret as to whether they reflect disinterest and apathy, or are a consequence of the boycott
• Boycotts can also result in inflating the apparent support of the other side as they are unlikely to boycott.

An additional problem is that the ability of governments to carry out their agenda is not necessarily connected to the popularity of their actions or the electoral votes they receive. Even governments with razor-thin majorities and limited electoral support can still carry out attacks.

So, a successful boycott could delegitimise the outcome of the survey, but the government is not binding itself to the outcome so this is unlikely to pressure the government to bring forward legislation for marriage equality.

The government's resistance to legislating for marriage equality and its unwillingness to commit to the process being binding, means that they don't care if the survey falls over. Any opposition to marriage equality will be embraced and support will be dismissed — a boycott will potentially make this easier.

To contemplate a boycott, we would need to have enough support for the boycott across the spectrum of supporters of marriage equality — which seems unlikely — to have little or no participation in the survey from the movement and the broader supporters of marriage equality.

In addition, we would need a viable strategy of turning the boycott into a concerted push to force the government's hand to bring a bill to parliament and allow its members to vote freely. This is something we do not currently have, which is why things are at the current impasse.

It is important to support any efforts to legally block the survey. But if it does go ahead building a united public campaign for a Yes vote will create the best opportunity to combat any hate campaign against the LGBTQI community by reactionary forces and limit the space the Turnbull government will have to manoeuvre on marriage equality.

It will be important that the campaign takes clear positions on other LGBTQI rights issues. The right will seek to mobilise fears around these issues. Failing to defend those communities will reinforce fears in the community of support for the broader rights of LGBTQI community being dropped once marriage equality has been achieved.

A decision by supporters of marriage equality to not participate in the survey process will not stop homophobic and transphobic attacks by the right; if anything a boycott campaign would encourage the right’s antics and rhetoric.

The key question as to how to engage with and respond to the survey is what will strengthen the campaign for marriage equality and for the broader rights of the LGBTQI community.

The benefits of taking this approach can be seen in the experience in Chile during the 1988 national plebiscite on whether dictator General Augusto Pinochet would receive a further eight-year term as president. The anti-dictatorship forces ran a No campaign despite concerns the vote was unfair, that participation in the plebiscite would give the dictatorship legitimacy and that the Junta would simply ignore a No vote.

This fear was backed up by archives that showed Pinochet had intended to ignore the No vote but the rest of the Junta refused to support this in the face of both the strength of the vote and the danger of increased international isolation. Despite these fears, the opposition saw the plebiscite as an opportunity to publicly campaign, albeit with extreme restrictions, against the dictatorship with the possibility that the vote would result in ending the dictatorship — something they ultimately achieved.

While the stakes in Australia are very different to Chile in 1988, and we would prefer the quicker and easier path of a direct vote now, this is not the reality we face. Instead, the survey, if it goes ahead, is the reality we live with. As such, participation in building the strongest possible Yes vote is a clear path to forcing a vote and giving Turnbull and the reactionaries in the Coalition and the Australian Christian Lobby a bloody nose.

As part of maximising the vote and to build pressure to force the government to recognise any Yes majority, we need to support public mobilisations for marriage equality and aim to make them as large as possible, both in the lead up and after the survey.

Originally published in Green Left Weekly #1149

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France: The vote on gay marriage

Gabriel Girard

Originally published in International Viewpoint

April 2013

On 23 April the second vote in the National Assembly passed this proposal into law. The radicalisation of the opponents to “Marriage for all” had continued apace since the article below was written. Demonstrations saw the “parliamentary right” alongside leading members of the far-right National Front, although not Marine Le Pen herself. Homophobia became frighteningly visible, including in attacks on people leaving gay bars in a number of cities. The demonstrations by partisans of the draft law, although supported by the Socialist Party and the other parties to its left (Front de Gauche including the Parti de Gauche and Communist Party, the NPA...), did not mobilise as broadly. This is no doubt due to the general disillusion with the Socialist Party government. International Viewpoint will publish more in the future on the polarisation around this question. [International Viewpoint]

On Tuesday 12 February, a little before 5pm, the French National Assembly voted by a large majority for the so-called “marriage for all” law, which gives same sex couples the right to civil marriage and to adopt children. Although this is a first reading, with the law yet having to be examined and voted on by the Senate, there is no doubt that the text will be definitively adopted before the summer, since the left holds the majority in both chambers.

This vote comes after several months of intense debates within French society between supports and opponents of equal rights. The satisfaction of an old demand of the LGBT movement is an undeniable success. However, the formal equality thus acquired does not end the fight against homophobia and transphobia. The adoption of the law, an indispensable stage on the road to equality, could however accentuate the process of differentiation developing among gays and lesbians. For the better off, a homosexual lifestyle is becoming increasingly one option among others. A banalisation barely detectable in the more precarious fringes of the community (youth, transgender, women, ethnic minorities, the HIV positive and so on), while the economic crisis strengthens dependency on the family, undermining the material conditions of emancipation. Awkwardly, some critical actors in “homo-nationalism” have in recent weeks wished to stress the existence of these fractures, in particular in the popular neighbourhoods and among young people of immigrant origin. [1] Some dangerous positions which have revived controversies on racism and imperialism in the LGBT communities, which run through the movement at an international level. Not a very good climate for a constructive debate on these issues.

Developing an approach of critical emancipation of hetero-normality, which is however attentive to the rhythms of mobilisation and politicisation of the majority of LGBT persons is the challenge for radical activists and the left of the LGBT movement.

The context

Contained in the manifesto of the candidate of the Parti Socialiste, François Hollande, during the presidential campaign of 2012, the demand for the right to same sex marriage has been raised for 15 years by the French LGBT movements.

In 1999, the left government had established the PaCS, a contract of civil union offering a legal framework to same sex couples, but without granting them all the associated rights of marriage. At the time, this first advance, however timid, had raised heated debates on the left, some fearing that the recognition of same sex unions threatened the “symbolic order” of the family. As an illustration of this, the adoption of the PaCS had been delayed for several months by the weak mobilisation of left deputies, who were in the minority in the Assembly during the first vote on the text. For the LGBT movements, the PaCS was a protective gain notably for couples including an HIV positive partner. But it was immediately challenged as a discriminatory law, because it established a legal inequality between homosexuals and heterosexuals.

From 2000 onwards, in a context where the right was in power, equality of rights rapidly became the main demand of the LGBT movements. In 2004, as Spain legalised the right to same sex marriage, a Green deputy, N. Mamère, participated in a marriage between two men, taking advantage of a loophole in the law: the sex of the married couple was not specified in the Civil Code. This symbolic action of disobedience had a high media profile, but remained isolated, with no other elected representative following. In subsequent years, the demand for marriage remained a priority on the agenda of LGBT struggles. But the perception that a victory would not be possible while the right was in power led most organisations to await a left electoral victory. Hence, while equality remained the main theme of Gay Pride Marches, no significant political campaign was waged on the subject.

The weakening of a perspective in terms of construction of a relationship of forces on these issues explains to a great extent the relative disorganisation of activist groups at the time where the right and Catholic Church entered the debate in September 2012.

The forces on the ground

During the debate on the PaCS in the late 1990s, the right and its fringes close to the Catholic Church had already led a heated opposition to the project, organising a demonstration of nearly 100,000 persons in Paris. The emblem of this anti-PaCS right, the deputy Christine Boutin, had not hesitated to brandish the Bible in the National Assembly to support her arguments. In a general manner, debate gave way to a deluge of homophobia. Meanwhile the left and the LGBT movements remained barely audible, and the Socialist Party was divided on the subject.

In 2012, the context was very different. The Socialists had just won the elections; the right was defeated, weakened by an internal leadership race and electorally rivalled by the Front National. The UMP leaders thus sought subjects to oppose the left, since the austerity policies pursued by Hollande left it with little room to differentiate itself. The draft law on “marriage for all” gave it an opportunity. In contrast to the debate on the PaCS, opponents advanced an apparently more “subtle” approach.

Openly homophobic discourse was abandoned, at least publicly, and the arguments centred above all on issues of parenting (adoption, medically assisted procreation, surrogate parenting). The figureheads of the “anti-equality” movement – two gays against marriage and a second rate singer/humorist – sought to offer a less political face to this combat. The critique of the “right to the child” and the defence of family values provided the rhetorical framework for the right. However, without surprise, opposition to the draft law rested on a highly reactionary movement very much anchored to the right and the Catholic networks. And during the demonstrations, homophobic slogans dominated. Two big demonstrations were organised, on November 17, 2012 and January 13, 2013, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people, supported by the UMP and the Front National, as well as the main representatives of Catholicism and other monotheistic religions. The Catholic Church put all its strength into the battle, massively organising the transport of demonstrators to Paris.

Occupying the media terrain, the anti equality forces adopted an essentialist and sexist discourse on gender and the heterosexual family order. They succeeded in polarising the debate around parenting and mobilised deputies opposed to the draft. The confusion reached its target, when Hollande wobbled, evoking a “conscience clause” for mayors hostile to the law. This, coupled with the massive demonstration of November 17, had the effect of an electric shock for LGBT activists and their supports. All the more in that the discourse of the right gave new life to everyday homophobia. On December 16, at the call of associations, trade unions and left political parties, nearly 150,000 people demonstrated throughout France in support of equal rights. The political left as a whole (NPA, Front de Gauche, Socialist Party, Greens) gave its support to the draft law. This demonstration, followed by a new, still bigger, march on January 27, was an unexpected event. They marked the most significant mobilisation for the LGBT movement in the past 40 years, apart from the Gay Pride Marches (which in recent years have attracted nearly 500,000 people in Paris).

However the government continued to send contradictory signals. While stating its determination, it retreated on the issues of parenting, explaining that access to assisted fertilisation for female couples would not be part of the draft law. Meanwhile Hollande personally received the organisers of the anti-marriage demonstrations, and the government unambiguously denounced surrogacy. The law voted for on February 12 satisfied some of the major demands of the LGBT movement but remained short of hopes.

Even if it is still too soon to draw the balance sheet, the mobilisation in favour of equal rights in autumn and winter constituted an important vector of politicisation in the LGBT communities. During these demonstrations, poles of radicalism appeared: the Pink block, articulating anti-capitalism, anti-racism and the fight against hetro normality; or the collective “Oui, oui, oui”, notably around the Panthères Roses, defending a clear demand for equality faced with the hesitations of the socialist government. More broadly, hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians have gone onto the street, taken part in social networks, in their places of study or work, expressing the force of a daily resistance to the homophobic discourse of the right.

The strategic issues for the LGBT movement

The limits to this mobilisation should be noted however. Strategically, it has at first rapidly appeared indispensable to agree on unifying demands. But with the pro equality movement being established above all in reaction to the right wing mobilisation, and according to the legislative calendar, demobilisation could be strong once the law is definitively adopted. The institutional bodies of the movement (the inter-LGBT in particular) bear a great share of the responsibility for this. At a time when the recrudescence of homophobic discourse and acts observed during recent months has cruelly underlined the need to continue a basic struggle on this terrain.

On the “content” of equality, the recent mobilisation has not allowed deeper debates to emerge. Hence, the feminist critiques of the institution of marriage or the necessary debates on surrogacy have been inaudible. For the left activists of the LGBT movement, a “progressive” strategy has been imposed: to win first on marriage and adoption so as then to push forward debates on family and conjugal norms. However, in the absence of democratic structuring, the potential political space for these debates could be significantly reduced in the coming weeks.

Footnotes

[1] Houria Bouteldja, “Universalisme gay, homoracialisme et ‘mariage pour tous’”, February 12, 2012,.

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France: Act UP-Paris Calls for Mobilisation Against Homophobic Violence

For equality, against homophobia
Call to rally Sunday, 21 April at Bastille

Act UP-Paris
Act Up-Paris calls for a rally this Sunday, 21 April 2013 in Paris, Place de la Bastille. Faced with the onslaught of hatred that hasengulfed all dykes, trans*, bies, fags, we demand equal rights.

The lack of equal rights maintains homo/lesbo/transphobia, promotes suicide and unsafe behavior vis-à-vis HIV/AIDS and STIs.

For all these reasons, we demand total equality of rights between heterosexual couples and homosexual couples - marriage, filiation; IFV open to all women - and opening of rights for trans* people – gender recognition based on affirmed gender with no cost and free choice in medical treatment. These measures should be accompanied by actual plans to fight against the violence and stigma that we experience daily.

More than a social issue, it is a practical necessity for us, trans, dykes, bies, intersex and fags.

Six months ago, our lives are the subject of a "debate" of whether we deserve the full rights due to us. For a week, the homophobes asked openly that our blood flow.

We no longer want to see their words in the media legitimized, to endure seeing their hatred towards us considered an acceptable part of discussion. Because in their eyes our lives have less value than the others: we die.

We decided to live. We refuse to see the street abandoned to violent and fascist groups that are homo/lesbo/transphobic, sexist, racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic. We refuse to see the growth of violence and threats against us.

Given the union of extreme right against equal rights, we call for solidarity. The heterosexuals who do not condone the violence perpetrated against us, must understand that their silence allows the homophobic acts. We demand full equality of rights and benefits for all minorities.

First Signatories
Act Up-Paris, Act Up-Sud Ouest, le P¡nk Bloc Paris, le SNEG, le STRASS, Gouine Comme Un Camion, AIDES, Étudions Gayment, le collectif Oui Oui Oui, Sortir du Colonialisme, le Caélif, Plug N’Play, les efFRONTé-e-s, MIF, LGBT Formation (Avignon), What The Film !, Txy, Collectif 8-Mars pour Toutes, Municigays (Marseille), Barbieturix, les Ours de Paris, Acceptess-T, Angel 91, le Collectif Cancan/Cockorico, l’Inter-LGBT, Hétéros au boulot, UEEH (universités d’été euroméditerrannéennes des homosexualités), Support Transgenre Strasbourg, la Fédération Total Respect / Tjenbé Rèd, les CHEFF (Belgique), Collectif Hétéros au boulot !, la Fédération des étudiants LGBTQI francophones de Belgique, Relais VIH de Rodez (12), Chrétiens&Sida, HBO (Homos et BiEs d’Orsay), Fédération Sportive Gaie et Lesbienne (FSGL), Centre LGBT Paris / Île-de-France, les Front Runners de Paris, King’s Queer, l’Organisation Internationale des Intersexes (OII France, Francophonie et Europe), ELCS (Elus Locaux Contre le Sida), les Petits Bonheurs, Solidaires Étudiant-es, David et Jonathan, Front de Lutte LGBT, Mouvement Français pour le Planning Familial, PopinGays, association LGBTP de l’ESTP, association ALGO du Quai d’Orsay, Les enfants d’Arc-En-Ciel, la FIDL, MPF (musulman-es progressistes de France), HM2F (homosexuel-les musulman-es de France), Collectif Gais Lurons, RAINBHOPITAL, Pari-T, les OUTragés de la République, CentrÉgaux, G.A.R.ç.E.S., R.O.S.A., l’ARDHIS, Keep Smiling, OUTrans, ID Trans, Les Flamands Roses, les AmiEs du Bus des Femmes, Association des Communistes Unitaires, Carrefour de Chrétiens Inclusifs, le Collectif du XVIème, la Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (FSU).

le NPA, Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV), les Jeunes Écologistes, la Gauche Anticapitaliste (GA), le Parti de Gauche, le Collectif Fier-e-s et Révolutionnaires, Union Pour le Communisme (Lyon), CENTR’EGAUX – Association des Centristes et Démocrates Lesbiennes Gays Bi Trans et GayFriendly, Les Alternatifs, La FASE (Fédération pour une alternative sociale et écologique), OCML Voie Prolétarienne, la Fédération Anarchiste, le Mouvement des Jeunes Socialistes (MJS).

Supports
Alternative Libertaire, Solidaires Paris.

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France: For equality now, against discrimination all the time!

The French National Assembly began debating a Bill on marriage equality on January 29. The proposed legislation was announced on November 7 2012. The introduction of the Bill has sharpened the debate within French society around the rights of LGBT people. LGBT organisations and supporters have escalated the movement for equality, pushing for President François Hollande and the government of Jean-Marc Ayrault to go further with the legislation in addressing discrimination against the LGBT community more broadly. This is response is important in the context of criticisms that have been made against the movements for marriage equality in the US and Australia. Specifically thatthese movements promote the campaign for marriage equality while ignoring the other oppression and discrimination experienced by the LGBT community.

Below is a rough translation of the call for the Demonstration for Equality held on December 16. The call was initiated by the interassociation LGBT which brings together 58 LGBT organisations across France. The original in French is available here. Organisers estimated that 150, 000 people attended the December 16 mobilisation (the police estimated 50, 000 participants).

I'll be posting more material about the campaign in France soon. 

Call - Demonstration for Equality on December 16 in Paris 

For equality now, against discrimination all the time!

On November 7, the Bill on the opening of marriage to same-sex couples and the recognition of homosexual parents was presented to the Council of Ministers. Parliamentary hearings started the next day in the French National Assembly. Fourteen years after the passing of Civil Solidarity Pacts (pacte civil de solidarité - Pacs[1]), the legislative march towards Equality for all resumes at last.

France designates lesbian, gay, bi and the trans (LGBT) citizens as second-class citizens in refusing their equal access to rights - and the only reason is their sexual orientation or their gender identity. Eleven countries have opened the right to the marriage for same-sex couples, including six member states of the European Union. The only consequence was equal rights.

Opening marriage, and allowing these couples to adopt, as the bill in its current form envisages, is a step towards the lifting of some of the forms of discrimination which the LGBT community is subjected to today. It is a progress but we cannot be satisfied.

We claim that all of the measures which François Hollande proposed during his election campaign belong in this Bill. This law should not be circumscribed with a law on the marriage: it must make it possible for LGBT people to be regarded as full citizens on a purely individual basis, in couple, within their family and in the whole company. The members of Parliament must open medically assisted procreation (PMA) to all women, the access to adoption for non-married couples, and give to same-sex couples the possibility of creating a bond of filiation with their children which are the same  as those available to heterosexual couples, whether they are in or out of marriage, today. We also ask for a reform of the division of parental authority so that all children are protected and all parents recognized whatever the family structure.

François Hollande was committed to respecting the basic rights of the Trans people with a legislative reform allowing them to have identity papers that conform with their affirmed gender without having to undergo sterilization or medical treatment. We remind him of it’s urgency and necessity.

The law will put to an end institutional discrimination that victimises LGBT people and protects today all the remarks and behaviours of lesbophobes, homophobes, biphobes and transphobes. We do not forget that this daily discrimination is a factor of discomfort, in particular for young people who record high rates of suicide attempts, risk taking and HIV infection. Since the debate is in the public square, the most defamatory remarks on behalf of the opponents to this Bill is being brought to our attention. Those who rise against this social project are the same ones as those which were opposed yesterday to access abortion, the right to contraception, the recognition of the divorce and to Pacs.

This is why we will protest on December 16 for quality, for social progress but also against all discrimination, all hate speech and all the forms of obscurantism.

* * * First signatories: Inter-LGBT / Coordination Lesbienne en France / SOS-Homophobie / Centre LGBT Paris-IDF / ACTHE / ID-Trans’/ AIDES / Collectif Oui oui oui / Les Enfants d’Arc-en-ciel / APGL / ADFH / Homoboulot / ALGO / Embrayage / HomoSfèRe / Mobilisnoo / Comin-G / Gare ! / Flag ! / Popingays / Les Panthères Roses / La Nef des Fiertés / Les Enfants de Cambacéres / MAG-Jeunes LGBT / Les Effronté-e-s / Osez le Féminisme / Cadac / Collectif National Droits des Femmes / Ardhis / David et Jonathan / Beit Haverim / Carrefour des Chrétiens Inclusifs / Appel pour le Christianisme Social / Fédération l’Autre Cercle / Contact Paris-IDF / Association Equal / Bi-Cause / Collectif LGBT ADFE – Français du monde / GLUP / LGBT Nord-IDF / Dures à Queer / Gouines Comme un Camion / Caélif / Melting-Pomme Caen / LGP Lyon / LGP Montpellier-LR / LGP Bordeaux / Centre LGBT Normandie / AEC Toulouse / Les Bascos – Boarritz / LGP Lille / LGP Marseille / Coordination InterPride France / SOS-Racisme / LMDE / UFAL / CNAFAL / FIDL / UNL / UNEF / FSU / Union syndicale Solidaires / EELV / Jeunes Ecologistes / Jeunes Radicaux de Gauche / Centr’égaux / GayLib / La Diagonale / Jeunes Socialistes / HES / Collectif Fier-e-s et Révolutionnaires / Front de Gauche (PCF, Parti de Gauche, Gauche unitaire, Fase, Convergences et alternative, République et Socialisme, Gauche anticapitaliste) / NPA

Not-signatories but supporting and calling with the demonstration: FSGL / ASMF / Les Oublié-e-s de la Mémoire / Syndicat de la Magistrature / LDH / UNSA / SE-UNSA / UNSA-Education / CGT / Parti Socialiste / PRG

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[1] Pacs are a form of civil union that was established under law in November 1999 which confers onto participants some of the legal rights granted under marriage including filing joint income tax returns and the impôt sur la fortune (wealth tax) being applied to the joint assests of couple. From it’s inception, Pacs have been accessed by larger numbers of opposite sex couples than same-sex couples, as of 2010 there were 9, 143 same-sex couples in a Pac, compared to 196, 415 opposite sex couples in a Pac.

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