Images of the 1988 stall ban and protests by Roger Lovell: click to enlarge
Written by Iain Clacher
Two Hobart City councillors have refused to
apologise for the banning of a gay rights stall and subsequent arrests at a
market 20 years ago.
Police arrested 130 people who defied a council ban on a gay law reform stall
at Salamanca Markets in September 1988.
Though Hobart City Council is tipped
to support the apology, councillors John Freeman and Darlene Haigh say the ban,
which is now credited with giving impetus to Tasmania’s successful gay law
reform process, was justified.
Though he refused to speak with MCV, Alderman Freeman told the Hobart Mercury he had no intention of
apologising, partly because homosexuality was illegal in 1988.
"It has been said that particular
demonstration was about gay law reform but it was about a lot more -- there
were pamphlets on sexual technique," Freeman said.
"There were also things promoting
high-risk behaviour.”
Alderman Haigh said council was justified
in banning the stall because it had received “numerous” complaints.
However, Lenore Tardiff, who ran the
markets and signed the stall’s gay law reform petition, contradicted both
councillors’ claims.
“I had to follow Council’s directives, and
in 88, I got a call from the Council’s administration officer, who told me
Council was going to recommend we throw out the law reform stall,” Tardiff told
MCV.
“He told me that it was on the sole basis
of a phone call from a mother of two who found the stall offensive.
“There followed local national and
international press, and it was only then that council would have received a
lot of letters. To say they received a lot of letters in the first place is
incorrect,” she said.
Tardiff said she never saw evidence of
sexually explicit material at the stall.
Claims that the ban was justified by
sexually explicit material have previously been denounced in Miranda Morris’
book, Pink Triangle: The Gay Law Reform Debate in Tasmania, which notes other
stallholders displayed T-shirts depicting “drug use, people vomiting,
defecating, farting; graphic illustrations of penises, breasts, buttocks; and
even bestiality – Wile E. Coyote copulating with the Road Runner”.
Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group co-convenor
Rodney Croome, who was arrested four times at Salamanca, told MCV there were
“no sexually explicit materials on the stall”.
“There were petitions on gay law reform and
pamphlets about why we needed to reform the law. We weren’t advocating for gay
sex, we were advocating for its decriminalisation and that’s an important
distinction.
“The same alderman made this point 20 years
ago: it was wrong then and it is wrong now,” he said.
Croome told MCV an apology would send a
positive message about the change that had occurred in Tasmania since
Salamanca.
“The council’s ban on the gay law reform
stall in 1988 and their order to arrest people who defied that ban was a very
traumatic and difficult time for those involved. It hurt a great many people
and left a legacy of bitterness which I think an apology would heal,” he said.
Croome also defended his decision to issue
a press release on the apology, after the Greater Hobart Coming Out
Proud Community Liaison Committee's Julian Punch said he was “seriously
concerned” about Croome’s “undiplomatic” statements.
“I feel my public comments on this have not
only reflected accurately the decision of the committee but also the reason for
that decision, and I would urge Julian to direct his energies towards those who
are opposed to an apology rather than people like me who share his goals in
this regard.”
Former administrator market Lenore Tardiff
backed the call for an apology.
“The group was asking for changes in the
law, and in retrospect that was valid as the law did change,” she said.
“The Council handled it like a bull in a
china shop. They handed it very badly and tried to stop calls for human rights
to be expressed.
“We all have prejudices, but the way to get
over them is to say sorry. And if the whole nation can do that, I don’t see why
Hobart City Council can’t do it as well.”
IMAGE: Courtesy Tourism Tasmania, Richard Eastwood.
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