Gay and lesbian politics is about the role that the state should play in regard to people who have or desire sex with people of the same sex. It seems to me that the central issues are the following.

If adults wish to engage in sexual activity with consenting adults of the same sex, then the state is obliged:

(a) not to interfere;
(b) not to discriminate against people who engage, or wish to engage, in such sexual activity;
(c) not to interfere with the right of private persons to discriminate for or against people who engage, or wish to engage, in such sexual activity.

On this view, the British (and American) states are presently at fault on a number of counts. In Britain, the state interferes with same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults, with prohibitions on the more extreme forms of sado-masochism and prohibitions on the sale of hard-core pornography. These interferences are non-discriminatory in that they apply to heterosexual as well as to homosexual sex. The state also discriminates against people with a penchant for homosexual sex in at least the following ways:

(a) later age of consent and harsher penalties for under-age sex;
(b) prohibition on 'promoting homosexuality' in state schools;
(c) barriers to serving in the military;
(d) denial to same-sex couples of legal rights granted to different-sex couples (e.g. marriage, inheritance, immigration, fostering, adoption, etc.).

Further, there is also some pressure - from gay and lesbian activists, of all people - to have the state prohibit private persons from discriminating between people on the basis of whether or not they engage, or wish to engage, in same-sex sexual activities. If this state prohibition were to come to pass, it would then be illegal to run gay-only or lesbian-only clubs, thereby denying one kind of outlet to gays and lesbians who want to spend an evening in the company only of like-minded people. Also, gays/lesbians who are providing goods and services to other gays/lesbians would be legally prohibited from employing only gays/lesbians in their business. (It would also entail analogous prohibitions on heterosexual people.)

All of the topics I have just outlined are raised in A Simple Matter of Justice? However, you will look in vain in this book for any clear statement of what the issues are. Angelia Wilson, in her Introduction, says that the aim of the book is to question whether the issues are best expressed in terms of the protection of personal liberties. However, from the alternative modes of expression employed in this book, it is difficult to decipher what the issues are supposed to be, what action is called for, or what result this action is intended to achieve.

The first two papers are concerned with the campaign which succeeded in bringing about a lower age of consent. David Smith gives an informative description of that campaign. He is followed by Anya Palmer who gives some interesting information on the mechanics of the campaign. This includes many practical tips which would profit anyone engaged in a law reform campaign. Unfortunately, these nuggets are preceded and followed by obscure political reflections which seem to be bedevilled by a desire for official approval and a quest for conformity.

For example, she complains that 'society' tells young lesbians and gay men that they are second best. However, I would retort that, while some people say such things, other people say entirely different things. Thankfully, we have a relatively broad scope for freedom of speech, which means that all manner of views are abroad in society (including Ms Palmer's). Her complaints about what 'society' tells people suggest that she would like a uniform ('politically correct') view imposed upon all. Similarly, she asks whether lesbians and gays should have the right to get married or whether they should reject marriage altogether. But it would seem to me that, surely, some will want to get married, others will want that option (whether or not they take it), while still others will not want anything to do with marriage. Recognising people's rights means leaving them the choice and accepting the differences that result; it cannot mean imposing the same outcome on everybody. One would have thought that a lesbian/gay campaigner would have understood the importance of the right to be different!

This quest for uniformity also manifests itself in her call for legislation to outlaw discrimination by private individuals on the basis of sexual orientation. I gave some examples earlier of situations in which this type of discrimination is good and sensible. Of course, there are other situations in which it is thoroughly objectionable, e.g. where a gay's job application is rejected because he is gay, even though he is the best-qualified candidate, and even though being gay or otherwise has no relation to the job purpose. However, the remedy for this objectionable kind of discrimination is to open up markets to competition, so that employers, in order to survive, will have to appoint the best person for the job irrespective of irrelevant characteristics of that person.

Paisley Currah distinguishes three stages in the campaign for gay and lesbian rights in America. First it was argued that state anti- sodomy laws were in conflict with the individual's constitutional right to privacy. Such arguments had worked for abortion and contraception, but the Supreme Court regarded it as at best facetious to extend this to homosexual sodomy. The second stage was to replace arguments about the legitimacy of practices (sodomy) by arguments about discrimination against groups (gays and lesbians), on analogy with discrimination on the basis of race or sex. In order for this to work, given the precedents in American constitutional law, homosexuality would have to be an immutable characteristic; but the courts regard it as being a matter of choice. The third stage is to argue for equal protection for gays and lesbians but without claiming a lesbian or gay group identity. This may use either of two types of charge against discriminatory legislation: (a) that it denies to gays and lesbians the right to participate in the political process; (b) that it is not rationally related to a legitimate government goal (as it would have to be to be constitutional). In this third stage, the campaign is beginning to achieve some successes. Ms Currah has some pseudo-philosophical, jargon-filled discussion around some issues raised by the different stages in the campaign; but, for the life of me, I cannot make out what she is trying to say, apart from one painfully silly remark in which she implies that talk of rights commits one to the existence of an atomistic transcendental subject!

Clause 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 prohibited local councils from 'promoting homosexuality'. Jean Carabine offers a case study of the response of councillors and officers at Sheffield City Council to the clause. She says that clause 28 was seen as an issue of civil liberties (freedom of expression) and party politics (the Labour council opposing Tory legislation). As a result, she complains, opposition to the clause did not challenge the following: the heterosexual system which enshrines the values of the family and notions of morality; the power and influence of heterosexuality; heterosexual power relations; the hegemonic dominance of heterosexuality; institutionalised heterosexism; structural inequalities. Perhaps these are all different names for the same thing. But what the hell is that thing? What do these expressions mean exactly? And what would the world look like if 'heterosexual hegemony' etc. were eradicated? It is not at all clear from Ms Carabine's paper. But she does give a clue when she says that, because 'heterosexism' is unchallenged: notions of lesbians as 'other' are reinforced; lesbians are excluded from the recognised hierarchy of disadvantage (black, disabled, women, etc.); lesbians and gays are seen as being middle class and therefore not needy, not needing council services. I think I am beginning to get the picture: 'I'm gay, therefore I'm a victim, so give me a hand-out.' It makes my stomach churn.

We get a similar picture later in Shane Phelan's attempt to 'theorise postmodern lesbian politics' - which, fittingly, she does in orotund and convoluted language (though still very readable by the standards of this book). She says that equal civil rights are not enough: it is also necessary to fight the oppression of white straight bourgeois men. What can this mean but state hand-outs and other privileges for blacks, lesbians, gays, women and other 'oppressed groups'? She also expresses a worry about lesbians wanting to get married because she thinks that marriage is inherently patriarchal. Even between lesbians!

David Evans distinguishes reformist campaigns, concerned with equal treatment, from radical campaigns concerned with heterosexism, oppression, patriarchy, capitalism, freedom, liberation. He laments the political apathy of most gays and lesbians who are more interested in celebrating gay lifestyles and indulging in commercial consumerism. He has a magniloquent discussion of sexuality which I defy anyone (including Mr Evans) to put into ordinary English; and an opaque discussion of justice which shows no understanding of the entitlement theory, despite the fact that he mentions that theory, as well as Nozick, and cites Anarchy, State and Utopia. The distinction between law and morality - which is crucial for a free and pluralistic society - he refers to, ruefully, as a 'dislocation', which suggests, again, a quest for imposed uniformity (only this time being imposed by him instead of by his enemies). He contends, surely rightly, that it is possible for a young person to be influenced in the direction of homosexuality by the example of a teacher or other adult (a proposition dogmatically denied by many gay/lesbian campaigners and others). But he thinks this contention is important to secure justice for gays/lesbians. The idea seems to be that if gays and lesbians are seen as being naturally distinct from heterosexuals (a class apart), then it is plausible to argue that they merit different rights or inequality of treatment. But, I would object, what on earth happened to human rights? I think he should read Nozick again (if he ever read him the first time).

Angelia Wilson wants gay and lesbian parental rights, i.e. homosexual families. But she seems to think that the heterosexual nuclear family is inherently unjust; and not only to people within it, but also to homosexuals outside of it (though she does not explain why). The centrality in society of heterosexual families amounts to 'heterosexism'; and it is this that she wants to abolish. But what can this mean? Given that a heterosexual rather than a homosexual family is always likely to be the preference of the majority of people, does it mean forcing heterosexuals into homosexual families? Queer justice indeed!

In short, this book is a collection of voluble and verbose rigmaroles around the topics of gay and lesbian politics. The authors stoutly reject 'heterosexism' but appear unable to explain exactly what this means. Insofar as one can discern their wishes from their words it seems that they desire a state-regimented conformity, with state-approved roles for gays, for lesbians and for others, with state hand-outs and other privileges for all manner of favoured groups, and with no possibility of anyone indulging in the pleasures of 'commercial consumerism'. None of the authors appears concerned with the central issue, which can be stated simply, viz., that provided he/she does not violate anyone's rights, the state should not put any barriers in the way of the sexually active citizen. I would say to lesbians and gays: if you want to live your own life in your own way, don't have anything to do with this type of politics. And of course, as some of these authors complain, most lesbians and gays don't!

Dr Bleys' Geography of Perversion is a history of European ideas about male homosexual behaviour. The span of the history is from the Enlightenment to the end of the first World War. Dr Bleys is particularly concerned with the way in which European theories about homosexuality were influenced by discoveries or reports about different cultures in the undeveloped world and by some ideas connected with European imperialism. The following picture emerges.

Islam had been associated with sodomy for centuries. However, the Europeans were disturbed at finding how common, how open, and often how accepted, sodomy was amongst the native people in Africa, Asia, the Far East and North and South America. Some writers accordingly saw sodomy as pagan and barbaric; but others saw it as a corruption of primitive societies introduced by Europeans. Traditionally, sodomy had been seen as an act that any man might perform, but from around 1750 it began to be seen as an act characteristic of a special class of men. In primitive cultures it was often found that some sodomites assumed female roles (including female attire), but this phenomenon was apparently virtually unknown in Europe. Soon, all sodomites came to be thought of as effeminate, cross-dressing and passive. Some theorists linked a tendency to sodomy with actual or presumed features of non-white races. Sodomy and sodomites were always seen as morally depraved. Some theorists saw them as suffering from a physical or psychological degeneration or deformity, possibly induced by a warm climate, possibly inborn.

Getting through this book was something of a struggle. Despite its topic, I found it not at all entertaining, and for the most part hardly even interesting. There appears to be a lot of repetition, and in places it seems to be little more than lists of what various people said. But by far the greatest problem is Dr Bleys' grandiloquent language. For example, hark at this:

'This trend, along with the waning impact of tropicalismo, that was reconciliatory on the levels of sexual and 'racial' difference, may indeed be interpreted as an indication of 'cultural resistance' against a discourse that is perceived as alienating, yet embracing some of its values of patriarchy and morality and contributing to the repression and eclipse of some aspects of indigenous heritage' (p.266).

His prolix, pompous and ponderous polysyllabic prose is pretty well impenetrable (see, he's got me at it too!). Further, matters are not helped by his obfuscating reliance on daft Marxist clich‚s. We get a 'bourgeois' this and a 'bourgeois' that and references to 'the ruling bourgeoisie'. He even thinks that imperialism was required by the demands of capitalism (rather than being a product of paternalism which is incompatible with free markets).

The only people to whom I would recommend this turgid tome are those at the Plain English Campaign. It is a goldmine of gobbledegook which can supply them with many paradigms of how not to write.

Danny Frederick