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LGBTIQ rights

After the killings in Orlando: grief, anger and vigilance

Sunday 19 June 2016

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This statement was made by the Bureau of the Fourth International at its meeting of 19th June 2016.

The killings perpetrated at the Pulse lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans,
intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) nightclub in Orlando in the United States
leave us in profound grief. Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved
ones, predominantly from the Latino community, and all the victims of
hate crimes against LGBTIQ people around the world. We are participating
in and initiating solidarity rallies, in many countries grieving over the biggest
concentrated slaughter of LGBTIQ people since the Second World War.

The fact that Daesh hailed this slaughter reveals even more clearly the
ultra-reactionary character of this organization. But the bigotry behind
this is not new, not created and encouraged by one single culture or
religion. In the US, the country where the killer was born and raised,
right-wing politicians denouncing the Orlando massacre nonetheless
hypocritically persist in blocking LGBTI rights. Denunciations from
other sources in other countries in the name of Christianity refuse even
to acknowledge that the victims were LGBTIQ people. LGBTIQ people - and
particularly trans women - are targets of murderous hate crime across
the globe.

The dead and wounded in Orlando were the victims of an ongoing, bloody
clash between two right-wing ideologies. One ideology preaches sexual
repression in the name of theocratic fundamentalism. The other
instrumentalizes LGBTI rights in the interests of anti-Muslim racism and
imperial interventions. Muslim LGBTIQ people, cruelly victimized by both
these two ideologies, have been particularly eloquent in exposing them
both; we are angry that their voices have been so little heeded. We
reject both these ideologies, and vow to continue joining in the fight
against them both, in the name of sexual freedom, peace and human
solidarity worldwide.

Bureau of the Fourth International

19 June 2016