Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Community supports maximum unity in the fight against the far right
LGBT organisations who are participating in and supporting the Unite Against Fascism campaign and its conference on Saturday 18th February have issued the following statement:
Unite Against Fascism – an alliance with all those who face the threat of the far right
As Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) organisations and individuals we support the principle that unity against fascism can only be effective by working with all those who face the threat of the far right.
The British National Party (BNP)’s politics of hatred includes attacking Muslims, the denial of the Holocaust, the aim of an “all-white Britain”, which could only be achieved through violent means, and campaigns of homophobia: They have run a gay pub landlord out of business in Burnley, liken gay men to paedophiles and have recently promoted a campaign attacking LGBT history month, describing it as an “atrocity”. They stand in the tradition of the Nazis, whose rise to power resulted in the deaths of millions of Jewish people, lesbians and gay men, disabled people, black people and trade unionists as well as others.
We cannot afford to underestimate the mortal threat that growing fascism poses to all of our communities or to be divided in the struggle against it. This means bringing together all those who are threatened by and opposed to fascism within a united anti-fascist framework. Muslim communities are a major target of BNP hate campaigning.
It is a regrettable reality that leading figures of most major religions have reactionary attitudes to homosexuality. We obviously disagree with these views. However we believe all those who oppose the BNP must be engaged with and that in turn can open a dialogue in which we seek to change such views.
Extremist Muslim groups who “glorify” terrorism are likely to be banned in Britain as early as this summer after Tony Blair yesterday overcame his second backbench rebellion this week to impose new laws designed to clamp down on the celebration of terrorism in speech, placards or on the internet.
Under the headline “
From London’s Trafalgar Square to Ramallah in Palestine, from Lebanon to Austria, the caricatures of the prophet Mohammed, first printed in a Danish paper, have sparked rage.