Pride. posted by Richard Seymour

Just had a wee wander through the Gay Pride parade , which is still sallying by the window as I type. Sure, my girlfriend's away for the weekend, so I saw nothing wrong with having a look. There's a rally over at Trafalgar Square and then there'll be something happening at Finsbury Park - so if you're sitting at home, scouring the internet for conspiracy theories, you could always drop in on the Proudest Place in the World. Unlike the football, there won't be any sadistic violence - in fact, your chances of being involuntarily buggered are considerably lower than if you attended a Millwall match. I can tell you that from experience.

If anyone thought the Gay movement was a clapped out corporatised sponsor-fest which glorifies narcissistic tossers in fake tan, then you need to look beyond the flurry of feathers and look global. Only four countries worldwide currently offer constitutional protection to their homosexual citizens, and Britain ain't among them. (They are Ecuador, South Africa, Fiji and Canada). Many apparently more repressive societies are actually more civilised than many European countries. Why is it, for instance, that Portugal bans homosexuals from certain occupations, including the military, but Rwanda has no such practises? Why is it that Montenegro allows 14 year olds to have sex with any gender they like, with no other restrictions applying, while Britain and America prefer to keep them waiting? Why should it be that Japan bans "open homosexuals" from its military, while Jordan's penal code makes no distinction whatsoever between gays and heterosexuals? Just because the police now have their own Pink Brigade doesn't mean that homophobia has disappeared in Britain. And it isn't merely a problem with the legislation, or with institutions. The 2002 British Social Attitudes Survey suggested that 23% of under-30s thought homosexuality was "always wrong" while 60% of over people aged 60+ thought the same. There is still a hard-core of homophobic nutballs out there who should be irritated and wound up at every fucking opportunity. That's why we need Gay Pride.

Gay Pride has thrust the dirty sport right in the homophobe's face, and as a result, more people are now willing to admit to being gay, or having had gay sex, then ever before . And it should be globalised - that is, integrated with the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements.. There is, inevitably, a huge number of African, Arab and Latin American states with deeply repressive sodomy legislation. In Saudi Arabia, they can kill you for it. In Nigeria, they can beat you for it, or kill you. In Jamaica, the cops are allowed to smack you around, and you have no legal protection. But there is a movement. The Gays are on the rise in Nicaragua, facing down a colonial heritage of homophobic bigotry, according to NACLA's most recent Report on the Americas (May/June 2004). The UN are pressuring Latin American governments to protect gay rights, Catholic bishops complain , but that will have nothing like the impact of a mass, militant campaign. And international solidarity is the first essential in that process. Without it, there will be no gay rights in Karachi, in Kingston, or in any of those 13 US States which still consider sodomy illegal.

Finally, one last reason why the gay rights movement should ally itself with the anticapitalist movement - we really must prevent Colin Powell from ever attempting to join a "Village People" hoe-down again.