It shocked me last week when the several NSW politicians compared the demonstrators who marched in the first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to Rosa Parks, the African-American civil rights activist who famously refused to move to the back of the bus. Gay activists had fought for equality and acceptance and paid a personal price. But could we really be as respected as Rosa Parks? Was this a fair comparison?
The politicians were speaking in the NSW Parliament to support a NSW Government apology to the so-called “78ers”: the activists who marched on 24 June 1978 to end discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender people. Homosexuality was a criminal act, a mental illness and against God’s will in the 70s. You never read or heard anything that was positive about homosexuality. Parents panicked if a child was gay and often rejected them from family life. “Coming out” was a new and often dangerous idea. We didn’t achieve decriminalization in NSW until 1984. We’re still fighting today for acceptance from most churches, mosques and synagogues.
The names, addresses and occupations of the 53 people were published on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. Many lost jobs, families and friends as a result.
Watch a video of Sydney’s disabled community celebrating Mardi Gras.
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I was there also Julie and was seriously knocked around outside Liverpool St courthouse with injuries to my knees that have worsened as I age - I hobble/limp when I walk now and in pain a lot of the time. So I have a daily and increasingly negative physical reminder of that day outside Liverpool St court. Like most lesbians of our generation, my partner and I paid single person's higher tax rates for almost all our working lives, were not classified as a "family" for health funds for most of this time so paid higher single rates there as well. This is in addition to the threats you referred to about being classified as mentally ill, facing mental incarceration if you happened to get on the wrong side of someone with influence, facing treatment or so called conversion therapy to change one's sexual orientation, threats at one's workplace if outed, threats of children being removed as gay parents deemed "unfit" , threats in public places from violent homophobes, threats and actuality of Commonwealth scholarships being withdrawn if gay, being written out of straight family histories and wills ... the list goes on. For those of us whose daily lives were circumscribed by gay haters - it can be hard to reflect on just how shockingly accurate the Rosa Parks analogy was. And I consider us the luckier ones because we had tertiary education, a genuine option of crafting our lives closer to what we wanted - provided we refused to stay at the back of the bus en masse. That being said, there are some things I also miss about being considered a deviant and outlaw!