Comments on: Revolutionary Lifestyles

Revolutionary Lifestyles

talos — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:42:32 -0800

Wedded by the revolution...
"Dare to struggle, dare to win ... as married gays. After raiding a few Army camps, two communist guerrillas hid in a forest gorge and fell in love. Deeply. That was three years ago. On Friday, under a romantic drizzle in a muddy clearing in Compostela Valley province in Mindanao, Ka Andres and Ka Jose exchanged vows in a heavily guarded ceremony before local villagers, friends from the city and their comrades in arms.
They are considered the first homosexual couple in the New People's Army (NPA) who were wed by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)."
Some reactions. A wedding picture.

By: talos

talos — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:46:16 -0800

Note the following (from the linked article) - and notice how traditional revolutionary puritanism is giving way to a more rational view of sexuality:

On gay relations "[We] conducted painstaking discussions to make comrades understand gay relations and gay rights," Andres said. "Gay cadres adhere to the strong Party discipline. They enhance the prestige of gays in the movement. This has gained positive results through the years. Comrades (male and female) and even the masses have learned to respect and recognize gays and their contribution to the revolution," he said. As early as 1995, the CPP's Southern Mindanao Regional Party Committee started to discuss gay rights in the movement. In 1998, a provision on gay relations and same-sex marriage was added to the CPP's guiding policy on relations contained in a document titled "On the Proletarian Relationship of Sexes (OPRS)." Under the OPRS, the communist movement is committed to guide and ensure there is no exploitation in any relationship-heterosexual or homosexual.

By: AlexReynolds

AlexReynolds — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:51:14 -0800

So if I want civil rights, I suppose I'll have to join a guerrilla faction. Wonderful country, these beautiful United States.

By: axon

axon — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:51:25 -0800

talos: The secondary links you posted don't seem to be working. Could you re-post them?

By: NoMich

NoMich — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:52:02 -0800

For the picture, were you trying to link to this one? 'Cause your last two links are this: http://www.metafilter.com/_blank

By: artifarce

artifarce — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:52:02 -0800

Could you repost the reactions & photos links?

By: axon

axon — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:53:58 -0800

Typical, and that whole communist chic thing is so pre-millennial.

By: talos

talos — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:57:10 -0800

I'm not sure what happenned: Photo, article. Sorry!

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 09:57:44 -0800

After raiding a few Army camps, two communist guerrillas hid in a forest gorge and fell in love. hid in a forest gorge.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:04:22 -0800

So if I want civil rights, I suppose I'll have to join a guerrilla faction. Nah, I think full civil rights for gay people are inevitable. How that'll happen, I'm not sure, I admit, but it'll have to do with less and less people caring so much what a few fanatics say.

By: docpops

docpops — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:23:19 -0800

What jonmc said. It's still the last sanctioned bastion of flaming bigots. It's inevitable, imo, as well. If it weren't so sad to see people continually marginalized, I would take perverse pleasure in watching the anti-gay idiots dig their own graves over the years.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:33:15 -0800

So if somebody yelled "Commie Fags!" they would just say "Thankyou, we are registered at the Manilla Bon Marche." I think that's sweet.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:37:32 -0800

So if I want civil rights, I suppose I'll have to join a guerrilla faction. Wonderful country, these beautiful United States. This happened in the philipines

By: gesamtkunstwerk

gesamtkunstwerk — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:38:00 -0800

Hm. As sister Jones might have said: They can ask me to dance, but I'm still not joining their revolution! The early Bolsheviks also preached sexual liberation, but it was pretty short-lived. There's something about guerilla fighting that spoils the romance for me.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:45:14 -0800

links in the main post should work now

By: stonerose

stonerose — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:49:16 -0800

There's something about guerilla fighting that spoils the romance for me. Well, I guess that ruins my surprise vacation plans for us...

By: talos

talos — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:59:43 -0800

Thanks, jessamyn, sorry for your trouble - I *promise* I'll check *all* the links next time!

By: ElvisJesus

ElvisJesus — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:03:15 -0800

see, this is what happens when cartoon characters come out of the closet

By: fshgrl

fshgrl — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:18:39 -0800

So if I want civil rights, I suppose I'll have to join a guerrilla faction. Well except for the whole document titled "On the Proletarian Relationship of Sexes (OPRS) bit and maybe the guiding the relationships bit too.

By: pardonyou?

pardonyou? — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:24:44 -0800

fshgrl, please don't spoil AlexReynold's "Worker's Paradise" fantasy. Love! Valor! Revolution!

By: salad spork

salad spork — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:49:32 -0800

The early Bolsheviks also preached sexual liberation, but it was pretty short-lived. There's something about guerilla fighting that spoils the romance for me. I think the Weather Underground/SDS was into the orgy thing for awhile, too. There's a history thesis to be written here, on nontraditional sexual values among revolutionary groups, but I'm too lazy to write it.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 13:14:06 -0800

There's a history thesis to be written here, on nontraditional sexual values among revolutionary groups, but I'm too lazy to write it. ..and life's too short to read it.

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 14:23:44 -0800

So if I want civil rights, I suppose I'll have to join a guerrilla faction. That's the best euphemism for "move to Massachusetts" EVER!

By: DrJohnEvans

DrJohnEvans — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 15:21:01 -0800

Huzzah! I think.

By: NoMich

NoMich — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:18:29 -0800

There's a history thesis to be written here, on nontraditional sexual values among revolutionary groups, but I'm too lazy to write it. A friend of mind wrote his thesis on a subject very close to this. Something along the lines of gays and lesbians in the radical left in the '60s. I believe that he concentrated on American movement, not the people holed up in a jungle along the equator somewhere.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:28:06 -0800

how sweet they are--and it just goes to show--we're here, we're queer, ~~we're everywhere~~we're overthrowing this year!

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:48:12 -0800

So if I want civil rights, I suppose I'll have to join a guerrilla faction. Wonderful country, these beautiful United States. This happened in the philipines delmoi, that's the whole point (of the sarcasm)

By: snsranch

snsranch — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:12:08 -0800

Salamat po, you gay communists you.

By: taz

taz — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:33:56 -0800

Fascinating, talos. Too bad these guys didn't marry before the election; the neocons would have paid them anything to stump for Kerry. They could have made a fortune. At any rate, something interesting from the Revolutionary Worker newspaper, the weekly newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA: On the Position on Homosexuality in the New Draft Programme ... The revolutionary proletariat is staunchly opposed to the attacks on homosexuality by reactionary forces such as religious fundamentalists, and to all physical assaults on, discrimination against, and government repression of homosexuals, which is so widespread and vicious in the U.S. today. In the new society, discrimination against homosexuals will be outlawed and struggled against in every sphere of society, including personal and family relations. Though they can't quite bring themselves to explicitly state that gay marriage should/"will" be a legal institution, they come close:

As recently as 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court, in Bowers vs. Hardwick, upheld the right of states with "sodomy" laws on their books to enforce those laws even where homosexual sex is consensual.(14) In the few states where laws were passed to allow gay marriage, vitriolic and reactionary counter-offensives were mounted to overturn this. And in September 1996, President Clinton signed the reactionary "Defense of Marriage Act" defining marriage as the "legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife," putting into federal law that no state shall be required to recognize same-sex marriages from other states and making this definition of marriage binding on all federal agencies and programs (for example, the IRS, Social Security and Medicare, etc.). Bourgeois secular as well as religious authorities practice all kinds of sexual activity among themselves, but these hypocrites often--and often brutally--seek to restrict and regulate sexual practices among the masses as part of enforcing and preserving the patriarchal family, traditional religious values and the enforcement of gender roles and the exercise of male right. And unfortunately this ultimately bourgeois-inspired (and encouraged) discrimination and violence aimed at homosexuals is sometimes carried out by individuals among the ranks of the people themselves.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:26:44 -0800

Well, bless their little commie hearts!

By: jb

jb — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:24:16 -0800

This is an example of something I learned studying Chinese history - it's not easy to dismiss something like Communism (i.e. Marxist-Leninism) as simply oppressive. Complex things can happen - like allowing for less traditional gender roles, improving oportunities or freedom in lifestyle, something that has made a huge difference for many Russian and Chinese women this century, even as civil liberties have be restrained. This isn't to try to excuse the evil that both of these regimes also perpetrated - but the world isn't simply black and white, good and evil. And "to whom" matters a great deal when you are talking about the effect of something like a communist regime. That said, I know nothing about the current situation in the Phillipines. Is this group a part of the official government, or a rebel group?