[lbo-talk] Re: Question about Marx and homosexuality

[B.]

I asked the question about Marx and homosexuality back
in November. Weird that only now it's getting
responses. So Michael Dawson's answer is basically,
"Who cares?" And "only a Marx fetishizer or basher"
[I'm neither] would want to know what Marx thought
about this? Give me a break. It was a simple question,
no need to get dramatic and project motives onto the
person asking it. 

B.

Michael Dawson wrote: 


> Nice change of question.  Were there folks who, on
sex, were more modern and
> humane in the 1800s than Karl Marx?  Yes, of course.

 So what?  The question
> is why Marx's view matters.  He didn't challenge his
era's flawed orthodoxy
> on the topic, but neither did whatever homophobia he
harbored affect
> anything else he wrote, said, or did on the public
level.  The topic is
> simply not relevant to assessing work or legacy. 
Neither is Marx's comment
> on the issue highly relevant to the fight against
homophobia today.  Only a
> Marx basher or a Marx fetishizer would care what he
said on the topic,
> beyond a tiny drip of curiosity.
> 
> And, by the way, it isn't necessarily relativist to
observe that people had
> worse attitudes about sexuality in previous times. 
See Cornel West.

=====
"I'm not too worried by hegemony / I know the cadre will look after me" - Magazine, "Model Worker," 1978