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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1985)
Out in Maggie's Britain by W.C. McRae Before W.C. McRae went to the CJK in early September, we asked him to look in at Gay s the Word for the latest on their Tight with Maggie s troops. McRae reports also on the lengths to which right-wingers will g o to deny equal access to gays and les bians in the UK, and the British hysteria surrounding AIDS. B ritain has a long and confused history regarding homosexuality. Many o f its m ost celebrated literary and artistic figures — from M arlowe to David Hockney, Byron to Virginia W oolf — have been gay or lesbian. For upper class young men, exposure to gay sexual experience is alm ost institutionalized by its tra d itio n o f public schools. And Britain, and especially England, to a degree unexpected in a largely secular society, inhibits itself by strictly observed, repressive, and self-policed social stereotypes, but there is w ithin this identity m atrix the category o f “ the eccentric" — "d a ft Gncle Harry" or “ the Misses Dunn and G ilbert at the top o f the road" — into w hich m any gay people are funneled to their safety but at cost to their integrity. The underside o f this is the periodic scape g o atin g o f gay figures in a kind o f ritual p u rifi cation — linked to filia tio n — o f the British psyche. O scar W ilde spent two years at hard labor, for flaunting his relationship w ith an aristocratic lover. To popular fancy, all B ritish /N azi double agents are upper class gay m en o f Cam bridge. And in recent years the fall o f Jerem y Thorpe as head o f the Liberal Party was accom panied by an inde cent collective tut-tutting o f tongues in sham em barrassm ent and petty malice. And, like Am erica, Britain is presently ex periencing, through sim ilar political forces, the death, or at least the atrophying, o f the liberal tradition o f the ’60s and 70s. But in m any real ways, the situation socially and po litica lly fo r gay men and lesbians in Britain under the Thatcher regim e is m uch worse than it is presently for Am erican gay people under Reagan. Gay's the Word Gay’s the W ord, the w orld’s second largest gay and lesbian bookstore, had been in op- eration fo r five years in Central London, serv ing the needs o f the lesbian and gay com m unity. In a bold, carefully planned, and com pletely unprovoked move, HM Customs and Excise m ounted a full-scale raid on Gay's the W ord on A pril 10,1984. In its raids, the Crown ultim ately seized 141 im ported titles (m ostly from Am erica) from the book store and storage. C rim inal charges were filed against the com pany and the nine indi vidual directors (seven men and two wom en) fo r “ con spir(ing ] fraudulently to evade the prohib itio n o f indecent or obscene m aterial" im posed by im portation law. Three individual directors were also charged with being “ know ingly concerned in fraudulent evasion on im portation o f indecent or obscene books." Lastly, all nine directors have been charged w ith consenting “ to the com m ission o f an o ffe n c e . . . o f being know ingly con cerned in the fraudulent evasion" o f the im portation o f obscene books. Each o f the three charges carries a m axim um of two years im p riso nm e nt and unlim ited fines. The p ro ceedings against Gay’s the W ord involve both condem nation o f the seized titles and crim ina l charges against the directors. The case is being decried in all sectors — save the governm ent — as an attack not sim ply on what gay men and lesbians can read, but as a civil liberty issue, the right to read freely, in a free society, what one chooses to read. B ut so anxious were HM Custom s and Ex cise and the Thatcher governm ent to do dam age to the gay com m unity, that they failed to do th e ir hom ework. First o f all, through an inconsistency in the law, som e of the books that the Crown is seeking to condem n as obscene when im ported are in fact also avail able in B ritish editions, against which no obscenity charges have been b ro u g h t Secondly, the books seized by the Customs agents as obscene were a w illy-nilly selection o f titles that had nothing to do with pornogra phy and were linked only by their being im ported, and, in the bureaucratic m ind, by a prim itive logic that assumes: homosexuality + books = pornography. Authors whose w orks were confiscated and condem ned as obscene include E dm und W hite, Jean G enet O scar W ilde, Patricia Nell Warren, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Gore Vidal. Titles seized as obscene include Directory for Gay Plays. Feminism in the 80s. Torch Song Trilogy. The AIDS Epidemic, and — perhaps m ost dangerously — The Diuine Cut-Out D oll Book. Also, the governm ent, when planning such an all-ou t attack on what a m inority may or m ay not im port to read, failed to realize the extent of sympathy from the "straight" book trade. Active help and support has come from such m ainstream sources as Penguin Book stores, Faber and Faber, Chatto and Windus, and others. The case will return to court probably early in 1986 with the crim inal charges against the directors. The Crown then has the preroga tive to move against each title individually, to condem n each as obscene. Gay’s the Word is being charged only un der im portation laws — only im ported titles are being deemed obscene. And with reason. O bscenity, or what the “ ordinary man in the street” w ould think is in “ poor taste," under the C ustom s C onsolidation Act o f 1876 doesn’t allow a “ literary” or "artistic m erit” defense, whereas a title published in Britain has the relative protection of this defense. It is quite possible, for instance, that a book may be freely published in Britain and would be illegal to im port into Britain. A ccording to Paul Hegarty, manager of the store, the defense will argue the educational and sociological m erit o f the seized titles, and m ore largely, the bookstore itself. 20,000 pounds have been raised out of the expected 50,000 pounds it will take to defend the case, and the issue has to an extent not foreseen or desired by the Crown, galvanized the gay/ lesbian com m unity and the straight business com m unity. A London Centre A happier recent move has been the establishm ent in London (and Edinburgh) of a lesbian and gay centre. The London Centre, located in the West End, contains a book store, bar and buffet restaurant counseling and advice facilities: provides inform ation about arts and cultural development; and provides free, centralized m eeting space for lesbian and gay groups. The Centre has had its storm y days w ithin — - one hears stories of battles concerning staffing, gender parity, and political rectitude — all rituals o f purifica tion. B ut funding, not surprisingly, has been its prim ary outside concern. Established and funded initially by the Greater London Council — the elected central governm ent for the greater London area — the Centre has since its inception been under attack by the Thatcher G overnm ent Short-lived jubilation was felt this year when the GLC funded the Centre to the tune o f 134,000 pounds. B ut in a m ove unprecedented in British history, the Thatcher goem m ent, fo r obvi ously political reasons (the GLC is “ left-w ing" — dom inated by the opposition Labour Party) began to legislate against the very ex istence o f the GLC. Early this sum m er Thatcher and her Conservative m ajority in Parliam ent were able, against great outcry even fro m w ithin her party, to vote out the existence o f the GLC. In a well-researched series o f moves, the Conservatives disen franchised the m andate fo r a central London g o ve rn m e n t The GLC w ill soon no longer exist and London w ill have no city govern m ent save its separate borough councils. O ther m ajor cities w ith Labour councils are now under attack. So totalitarian is the aim of the Thatcher governm ent and such is her m a jority in Parliam ent that she legislatively destabilizes or — in this case — destroys the m andate for, any resist a nee o r opposition. Even though B ritain's only openly gay MP com es fro m Finsbury and Islington, where the Lesbian and Gay Centre is located, it is unlikely that any one individual borough will be able to fund services fo r all London. A ID S In the CJK AIDS is as urgent an issue in B ritain as in the GS, but expectedly, considering the poli tical clim ate prevailing in both, program s concerning AIDS have received little govern m ent assitance. Given the hysterical nature of the B ritish press and the w illfu lly banal turn of the average B ritish m ind, little public educa tio n has been accom plished. As in the GS, alm ost all w ork w ith AIDS has been volun teered fro m the gay com m un ity itself. But for reasons best know n to them selves, there has been little cooperation between these groups and partisan factions divide what services are offered. The m edical com m unity, with excep tions, has largely bought into the idea o f the "gay plague," and with the recently legislated rig h t to incarcerate a person w ith AIDS in hospital, is doing little to contravene the titilla- tion that the B ritish populace derives from casting m oral aspersions at at a m inority. And all the m ore so since AIDS is foreign. A m edi cal spokesm an fo r the Health Board o f Glas gow blam ed AIDS on N orth A m erican vis itors to B ritain, establishing polarities o f the purity o f “ o u r" B ritish blood, as opposed to that o f “ outsiders." N othing so excites a B ri ton as the idea o f an invasion, even if it is viral. Just O ut, Novem ber, 1985