A founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrsnd and a worker with the Township AIDS Project in Soweto, Simon Nkoli will give a talk on the struggle for lesbian and gay freedom in South Africa. A video of the first gay and lesbian march in Africa, in Johannesburg, October 1990, will be shown.

The public meeting will be held at 7pm, Friday 10 April, at the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, 2nd floor, 74-78 Oxford St, Darlinghurst. Donation at door for tour expenses.

Once more the anti-war group Enola Gay will be organising a gay and lesbian contingent to participate in the Palm Sunday march and rally.

People who intend to join the contingent should meet at Belmore Park on April12 at 12.30pm.

Sydney has marked the anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion with strong daytime marches several times since the foundation of Gay Solidarity in 1978. The last weekend in June is an important time for lesbian and gay public action because:

A meeting to start planning for a march this year has already been held. It is hoped that the march start from Sydney Town Hall and ends at the Stonewall Garden (Green Park).

Another preparatory meeting is planned for April12 (after the Palm Sunday rally) at 4pm, at the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby. All activists are encouraged to participate. If you are a lesbian and/or gay group, two people attending from each group would be good.

No social liberation without Lesbian and gay liberation! Make our liberation part of the workers' movement's agenda. March with Lesbian and Gay Solidarity in the International Workers' Day march.

Details are not yet known. However you will see us with our banners reading "Socialism, Feminism, Gay Liberation".

Over the last few weeks students and young people's rights have come under heavy fire. We're not talking small fry here: Keating, Brian Howe and Greiner, all under the heavyweight category, gave us a demonstration of sheer bigotry, ignorance and reaction. Interesting how the rightwing liberal, our right wing labour prime minister and the so-called left wing labour faction leader came together united.

First it was the University of Technology Orientation Week Handbook: 3 pages on drugs caused a furore, the handbook was taken out of circulation and the people involved in its production are under federal police investigation.

Then the Family Planning Association published the Fact and Fantasy Sex Diary and set up a sex info hotline for young people and run by young people. The Diary was pulled out of circulation (but not before the first printing had already been bought up); the hotline lost its funding.

Resistance decided to run its own copies of the diary but they were threatened with legal action. The excuse given was that of copyright. Obviously It's a synonym for censorship.

Resistance then decided to publish their own leaflet. Fantastic Sex Facts is now available from the Resistance Centre for $1. It is NOT available within high schools because a ban on its sale is in place already.

The next target waa SICH - Student Initiatives in Community Health. The excuse: a tongue in cheek iconoclastic poem in their magazine Catalyst. And the magazine itself waa censored while SICH waa denied the funding it had been receiving for the last 17 years.

These attacks are not being taken lying down. Resistance is still selling its leaflet. Tho hotline is being run by volunteers. SICH is fighting back, organising protest actions and raising funds.

Resistance: 23, Aborcrombie St, Chippendale.Ph 690 1977 Sex Hotline: 02 310 3878 SICH: Sydney Uni SRC. Ph 02 660 5222.

On Saturday 28 March a number of gay/lesbian and socialist organizations picketed a benefit concert aimed at raising funds to enable the work begun by Fred Hollows in Eritrea to continue.

The protesters are not targetting the fundraising benefit. We were there to make a point with those who attended, that Fred Hollows night have done lots of good work in other areas but that he really stuffed up over the AIDS issue.

Fred's comments were racist. His proposal that rural Aborigines should be protected by. isolation is but a variation on a theme familiar throughout Australia's 200 years of Invasion: Aborigines forced from their homelands onto missions, stations, city fringes... All this of course for their own good. That somebody of Fred's stature should come up with similar schemes boggles the mind.

It is hard to assess the harm his anti-homosexual comments have caused. Because of his standing he has given a perfect cover for policy makers, the "respectable" media and others to start backtracking on their commitment to a sane, medically sound and ethically acceptable approach to the AIDS epidemic. It is essential that all of us try to control the damage he's caused and to prepare for his promised renewal of assault at the "AIDS: Have We Got It Right?" summit in May.

Following the controversy over the racist letter published in Campaign. o public meeting was convened at the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby. The issue of racism within the gay/lesbian communities waa raised and it was decided to set up an anti-racist organisation. Gays and Lesbians Against Racism was launched officially at a special general meeting on March 14. GLAR organised a contingent in the Mardi Gras parade and was one of the organisations endorsing the anti-Fred Hollows picket.

Racism amongst homosexuals is nothing new. In 1984 Gays Against Racism was founded to tackle it. Gays and Lesbians Against Racism continues that tradition, which is an essential part of the struggle for lesbian and gay liberation. GLAR can be contacted by writing to P.O.Box 9 Darlinghurst 2010.

GAYWAVES goes to air every Thursday night from 8 pm to 10.30 pm on 2SER FM 107.3 KHz. WILD GALS goes to air every Saturday night from 7pm to 10 pm on 2RSR 88.9 KHz

GAYWAVES is recruiting for more lesbian members. If interested write to PO Box 473 Broadway 2007 or phone 330 3000 during broadcasting time.

Melbourne's monthly newsletter of gay and lesbian activism is available fron PO Box 108 North Carlton VIC 3054 for $15 ($5 concession) for one year.

CURRENT NEWSLETTER AND ARCHIVE OF PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS

Mannie has a personal web site: RED JOS: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM

Mannie's blogs may be accessed by clicking on to the following links:

MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)

Activist Kicks Backs - Blognow archive re-housed - 2005-2009

RED JOS BLOGSPOT (from January 2009 onwards)

This page updated 18 SEPTEMBER 2014 and again on 26 APRIL 2017

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