The Communist Party is committed to full equality – including equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. The party opposes any effort to deny employment, housing, adoption privileges, or marriage rights to any person or couple on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Homophobia and the oppression of LGBTQ people, like racism and sexism, only serve to keep working people divided from one another and block movements for social and economic justice. Communists work together in coalition with other progressives to fight for a future in which diversity in all its forms is valued and celebrated.

Though our organization was slow to recognize the importance of LGBTQ struggles in the past, individual Communists have been at the forefront of this movement from the very beginning. It was Harry Hay, a former Communist Party member and union organizer in New York’s department stores, who founded the first gay organization in the United States – the Mattachine Society.

Today, we are proud to celebrate this heritage and stand together with the LGBTQ community in its struggle for equality.

C.J. Atkins

Opinion Editor, People’s World

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