Library:In the Spirit of Stonewall/Supreme Court attacks gays, not pornography
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Supreme Court attacks gays, not pornography
Chicago, September 28, 1973
In June of this year, the Supreme Court gave local jurisdictions broad powers to determine and control obscenity, holding that juries may consider state or local rather than national standards to determine what is pornographic.
The history of the U.S. Supreme Court has shown it to be a tool of big business interests. So we can't seriously believe that this ruling is directed against multi-million dollar pornography empires such as Playboy, Penthouse, or film studios that daily grind out films which exploit and degrade women as mindless sex objects for white businessmen.
Who then is to bear the brunt of this ruling? Arch-racist priest and Chicago alderman, Francis X. Lawlor, gave us a key when he claimed that the "phenomenal increase in the number of homosexual was directly traceable to pornography." He also claimed that. "The Supreme Court has come through and now it is up to grassroots America to stand on its feet and say: 'We're here; we want to be recognized.'"
In view of the recent wave of attacks against gay people, from the murder by fire of 32 gays in New Orleans, to bomb threats against the Chicago Gay Alliance; from the "mysterious" explosion in a gay bar in Springfield, Massachusetts, to the beatings of gays by cops in Los Angeles, the Supreme Court decision can only be seen as official sanction for these heinous crimes.
Until recently, gay literature could only be purchased in pornographic book stores. Not because it was obscene, but because homosexuals were considered obscene. Gay prisoners are still denied the right to receive gay newspapers and books. Homosexuals are also part of grassroots America and we are also standing up to be recognized. The Gay Caucus of Youth Against War & Fascism realizes that to do this we must fight back against homophobic attacks, whether they come from newspapers columnists, racist priests, fascists, cops, or the Supreme Court.
We are not obscene or pornographic, but gay and proud and fighting back against the ruling class of this country and the restrictions it places on our lives, It is this, and not Hugh Hefner, that scares the Supreme Court.