What I learned workg a naked gay bar | SBS Voic

Contents:

• ALAI GAY AND LBIAN SCENE
• MAN’S FURY OVER ‘PRAVED’ TOILET ACT SPARKS BATE OVER GAY BEATS
• GAY BEACH.TENNYSON DUN ALAI ATRALIA.
• WHAT I LEARNED WORKG A NAKED GAY BAR
• "ONE ATTACK A WEEK": ALAI'S GAY HATE CRIM
• BRISBANE GAY SNAS
• CANBERRA, NOT SYDNEY, IS THE GAY AND LBIAN PAL OF ATRALIA

ALAI GAY AND LBIAN SCENE

For s, gay bashers operated wh impuny. But ltle is known about gay hate crim outsi those now wily documented NSW.

MAN’S FURY OVER ‘PRAVED’ TOILET ACT SPARKS BATE OVER GAY BEATS

NSW now has a task force, Operatn Parrabell, reviewg 88 aths cludg 30 unsolved s om the 1970s to the early 2000s as potential gay-hate murrs, most of which weren’t treated as such at the time. Police didn’t keep stats and even if they did, they would have been worthls bee gay people didn’t go to the police. For their part, the police saw the homosexual muny as the crimals - bee they were.

Even after homosexual acts beme legal across Atralia between 1975 (South Atralia) and 1997 (Tasmania), what went on at beats has remaed an act of public cency. Even some of the out-and-proud gay muny looked down on what those men did the darkns.

GAY BEACH.TENNYSON DUN ALAI ATRALIA.

Acrdg to Profsor Stephen Tomsen om the Universy of Wtern Sydney, the crimologist who did a lot of the work intifyg the 88 NSW s, the only reason siar potential gay-hate murrs haven’t been found else where is that no one’s gone lookg. And so I cid to foc on the cy of church and bodi barrels – a socially progrsive cy wh a reputatn for twisted darkns – where even while they were leadg the way gay law reform, men were beg vicly bashed behd the bh. And while other Alai crim like the disappearance of the Bemont children and the Snowtown murrs grabbed the headl and gave the cy s perhaps unserved reputatn, wh one notable exceptn the s I was lookg at – like most gay-hate crim – went by largely unnoticed.

An graed culture whose legacy re-mas a fear of reportg crim and the “gay-panic fence”, whereby, two stat, you n still kill a bloke and have downgrad to manslghter by sayg, “He me on to me. He nied that they went there to bash gay men. They nied havg heard anythg about the 1991 murr of another gay man, David Sat, the South Parklands.

WHAT I LEARNED WORKG A NAKED GAY BAR

“Who would have believed that South Atralia would, 1992, see a jury set ee two men who btally bashed a gay man wh a three-foot metal bar? ”The gay men – victim and wns – were all qutned at length about what was they were dog Veale Garns and about such germane matters as where they would have had sex had they met the right man. And then whether or not a homosexual advance was sufficient to expla the subsequent extreme vlence meted out.

The acqutal me as a shock to the gay muny. Activist Ian Purcell stood ont of a banner proclaimg “Gay Bashg isn’t self--fence”, as he addrsed the crowd: “Who would have believed that South Atralia – which proudly led the world gay law reform the 1970s – would, 1992, see a jury set ee two men who btally bashed a gay man wh a three-foot metal bar?

Kenton Penley, spokman for the Lbian and Gay Communy Actn, said gay bashgs were on the rise and that acrdg to rmatn gathered by the muny, at least two homosexuals were hospalised each week after ser attacks. Om this cisn is that gay people are no longer protected by the law, ” Penley said.

"ONE ATTACK A WEEK": ALAI'S GAY HATE CRIM

The Advertiser ran a letter om the secretary of the Moral Renewal Society, David W Griffhs, which agreed: “The signal beg sent to the homosexual muny [by the verdict] is one of: be warned, unnatural behavur, if advanced unwarranted to a normal person, n be nsted as offensive and retaliatn n be accepted as self-fence. Comedian Julian Clary apparently once said the cy’s signer, Colonel William Light, mt have been gay for the way he set Garns ss at the southern end of the rg, while further north, near the top end of town and the River Torrens, is the “Number One Beat” which, 1972, had been Alai’s hottt gay pick-up spot sce before anyone uld remember. As a vice squad officer, the diligent 22-year-old had a duty to uphold the laws agast gamblg, SP bookmakers and prostutn, to monor the nightclubs and to keep the “homos” check.

He liked the homosexual work the least. It’s been argued that the screw got turned particularly tightly on South Atralia’s homosexuals after the Woomera rocket range was built 1949. Any gay man workg for the project uld be a blackmail target for foreign agents.

“Homosexuals got together wh each other and had great parti, ” says historian Tim Reev.

BRISBANE GAY SNAS

And while the straight ps like O’Shea were draggg gay men to the legal system, throwg them prison cells, the bent ps were g at them om a different angle. “They would brag regularly about their pas wh the gays and what they’d done to them and how they’d thrown them the river... ’” It seemed to O’Shea that the practice of tossg homosexuals the river went back a long way.

“But no one that got thrown ever surfaced for a plat bee they were homosexual. Beg gay had got him an honourable discharge om the army which he’d wanted. Jam has only ever given one public terview about the night that was gog to change everythg for him and for all gay men the state.

Or ed that the history of gay law reform Atralia was about to beg. The now ntroversial forensic pathologist, Dr Col Manock, had him pned as a homosexual at his topsy, owg to the funnel shape of his an. There has been no jtice for Dunn, but wh seven weeks of his ath, the first bill Atralia to crimalise homosexualy had been troduced to the South Atralian parliament, by a nservative polician.

CANBERRA, NOT SYDNEY, IS THE GAY AND LBIAN PAL OF ATRALIA

By the time was passed, was nsirably watered down, but over the next few years South Atralia beme the first state Atralia to crimalise homosexualy. The crimalisatn of homosexualy, however, didn’t make legal to have sex at beats.