Do You Remember When Being Gay Meant You Were a Criminal and Insane?
As I think back now to all the indignities I suffered as a gay man in my younger years, I have to be reminded of how easy things are for younger gay people today. Today's report, from a gay newspaper in Australia brought back a lot of old memories, and served to remind me of exactly why I am so down on police in general. Read the report, then I will add some comments.
=============================================
Rights activists recall when gay sex was a crime
By Lorna Edwards
December 19, 2005
WHEN Victoria (In this instance, a town in Australia) finally overturned archaic laws that criminalised gay sex in 1980, some community groups feared the worst.
The Concerned Parents Association of Victoria believed decriminalisation of sex between men would unleash an "aggressive social epidemic" while the Reverend Bob Payne of the Frankston Baptist Centre thought all hell had broken loose.
"In terms of moral contamination, I see homosexuality today as akin to the leprosy of yesterday," the outraged reverend railed in The Herald in 1982, calling for the segregation of "sodomites" in Victoria.
As recently as the early '80s, the US had an immigration policy barring entry to admitted homosexuals, and authorities such as the police force said gays had no place among their ranks as they would be susceptible to blackmail.
These views show how far gay rights have progressed since the Hamer government made Victoria the second state in Australia to repeal anti-homosexual laws that had left the gay community open to routine harassment and discrimination for decades.
Even when the Hamer government changed the laws on December 17, 1980, many Liberals and Nationals still had strong misgivings.
National Party leader Ross Edwards said it was impossible for gay men to get real happiness out of life and the then minister for labor and industry Jim Ramsay suggested it would be better to help homosexuals "regain normal sexual behaviour".
Over the weekend, gay rights activists commemorated the 25th anniversary of decriminalisation in Victoria and the subsequent formation of the Alternative Life Styles Organisation, now known as the ALSO Foundation.
Jamie Gardiner, an equal opportunity commissioner and vice-president of Liberty Victoria, remembers the era when homosexuality was very much the love that dare not speak its name. As a young gay activist and president of the then Homosexual Law Reform Coalition, he was at the forefront of the campaign.
Up until 1980, sections of the Crimes Act outlawed the "abominable crime of buggery" and "gross indecency between male persons", but it was the summary offence of soliciting and loitering for homosexual purposes that thousands of men were charged with.
Fearing public embarrassment and the loss of their jobs, few ever contested the charges in court, even when police continued charging men a year after the laws were overturned. (Note: Same thing in USA. Clear into the early 1970's police in Illinois continued charging homosexuals as a routine thing.)
"This was the charge that caused most damage because it was used in an arbitrary and often discriminatory way against gay men in public spaces not necessarily where sex was involved, and it was an offence from which you could not defend yourself," Mr Gardiner said.
In the late '70s, a Melbourne gay couple who reported a burglary found themselves charged with gross indecency after investigating police noticed their apartment had only one bed. Ditto USA. If a gay person got beaten up or bashed by a heterosexual guy, the best thing to do was shut his mouth and take his lumps. IF he chose to tell police what happened police would arrest him, charge him with 'sodomy' and haul him off to prison instead.
The long campaign for decriminalisation included a protest picnic at Black Rock in 1976 following mass arrests by police in the area and a kissing protest staged on Collins Street after two men were convicted of offensive behaviour for kissing there in 1979.
ALSO chief executive Adam Pickvance said that for the gay community the 1980 victory of decriminalisation was akin to women first getting the vote but today many young gay people were unaware of the battle and took their equality for granted.
Copyright 2005 'The Age' (Australian gay newspaper)
**FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without
profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, The Age Newspaper.
=====================================
Here in the United States police acted-out with impunity until various times. For example, Illinois was the first state in the USA to totally abolish any/all laws relating to consensual sexual behavior. That was in 1960. Some twenty or so other states gradually changed their laws to decriminalize homosexual behavior over the next thirty years. The final 'holdouts' (if you wish to call them that) finally had their sodomy laws abolished a couple years ago. As those laws were gradually, thankfully tossed out, police generally did NOT obey them unless and until a court somewhere forced them to do so. Police do not like to obey laws -- unless they are laws the police support -- so always assume that any laws which give regular citizens -- like gay people -- more freedom will usually be ignored by police until a final very high court slaps them down and forces them to go along.
If the victim -- the gay person -- had money, of course he got a lawyer and would fight police in the courts, and in each of those instances, when it got to court (with an attorney present to represent the gay person)the victim would be released from custody. In Illinois, where I have some knowledge for instance, until 1960 when the law was changed, police routinely arrested gay men for no other reason than their admitted gayness, (or because police made that detirmination) and the gay men were (according to the laws against 'sodomy) either sent to prison for a period of two to fourteen years _or_ in the later years of the 'dark ages' (the pre-1960 recodification of the law) -- say the 1950's onward -- placed instead in an insane asylum. That is because many of the police and their supporters considered themesleves to be 'more enlightened' as time went on; an insane asylum was considered a better place than a prison.
If police chose to go that route (asylum rather than prison) the rule was you had to stay in the insane asylum for a minimum of two years -- the minimum period of time you would have otherwise been in prison for being gay, no other reason then they would cut you loose on parole to the asylum in the event you 'acted out' any further. In the asylum, technically you were to remain in custody until such time as you were fully and permanently recovered from your 'illness', but of course we know what a crock of shit that thing about your 'illness' is concerned.
As the laws changed, state by state over the next quarter-century or so there would still be instances where gay people would get into sexual situations in public places (or even in the privacy of their home where it was obvious to police) and continue to get arrested, have to spend a slight fortune on a defense attorney (who may or may not have been a sleazy son-of-a-bitch (most of them who did sex cases were in fact sleazy) in order to get out of the mess. I will discuss more about this in another installment here soon.
=============================================
Rights activists recall when gay sex was a crime
By Lorna Edwards
December 19, 2005
WHEN Victoria (In this instance, a town in Australia) finally overturned archaic laws that criminalised gay sex in 1980, some community groups feared the worst.
The Concerned Parents Association of Victoria believed decriminalisation of sex between men would unleash an "aggressive social epidemic" while the Reverend Bob Payne of the Frankston Baptist Centre thought all hell had broken loose.
"In terms of moral contamination, I see homosexuality today as akin to the leprosy of yesterday," the outraged reverend railed in The Herald in 1982, calling for the segregation of "sodomites" in Victoria.
As recently as the early '80s, the US had an immigration policy barring entry to admitted homosexuals, and authorities such as the police force said gays had no place among their ranks as they would be susceptible to blackmail.
These views show how far gay rights have progressed since the Hamer government made Victoria the second state in Australia to repeal anti-homosexual laws that had left the gay community open to routine harassment and discrimination for decades.
Even when the Hamer government changed the laws on December 17, 1980, many Liberals and Nationals still had strong misgivings.
National Party leader Ross Edwards said it was impossible for gay men to get real happiness out of life and the then minister for labor and industry Jim Ramsay suggested it would be better to help homosexuals "regain normal sexual behaviour".
Over the weekend, gay rights activists commemorated the 25th anniversary of decriminalisation in Victoria and the subsequent formation of the Alternative Life Styles Organisation, now known as the ALSO Foundation.
Jamie Gardiner, an equal opportunity commissioner and vice-president of Liberty Victoria, remembers the era when homosexuality was very much the love that dare not speak its name. As a young gay activist and president of the then Homosexual Law Reform Coalition, he was at the forefront of the campaign.
Up until 1980, sections of the Crimes Act outlawed the "abominable crime of buggery" and "gross indecency between male persons", but it was the summary offence of soliciting and loitering for homosexual purposes that thousands of men were charged with.
Fearing public embarrassment and the loss of their jobs, few ever contested the charges in court, even when police continued charging men a year after the laws were overturned. (Note: Same thing in USA. Clear into the early 1970's police in Illinois continued charging homosexuals as a routine thing.)
"This was the charge that caused most damage because it was used in an arbitrary and often discriminatory way against gay men in public spaces not necessarily where sex was involved, and it was an offence from which you could not defend yourself," Mr Gardiner said.
In the late '70s, a Melbourne gay couple who reported a burglary found themselves charged with gross indecency after investigating police noticed their apartment had only one bed. Ditto USA. If a gay person got beaten up or bashed by a heterosexual guy, the best thing to do was shut his mouth and take his lumps. IF he chose to tell police what happened police would arrest him, charge him with 'sodomy' and haul him off to prison instead.
The long campaign for decriminalisation included a protest picnic at Black Rock in 1976 following mass arrests by police in the area and a kissing protest staged on Collins Street after two men were convicted of offensive behaviour for kissing there in 1979.
ALSO chief executive Adam Pickvance said that for the gay community the 1980 victory of decriminalisation was akin to women first getting the vote but today many young gay people were unaware of the battle and took their equality for granted.
Copyright 2005 'The Age' (Australian gay newspaper)
**FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without
profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, in this instance, The Age Newspaper.
=====================================
Here in the United States police acted-out with impunity until various times. For example, Illinois was the first state in the USA to totally abolish any/all laws relating to consensual sexual behavior. That was in 1960. Some twenty or so other states gradually changed their laws to decriminalize homosexual behavior over the next thirty years. The final 'holdouts' (if you wish to call them that) finally had their sodomy laws abolished a couple years ago. As those laws were gradually, thankfully tossed out, police generally did NOT obey them unless and until a court somewhere forced them to do so. Police do not like to obey laws -- unless they are laws the police support -- so always assume that any laws which give regular citizens -- like gay people -- more freedom will usually be ignored by police until a final very high court slaps them down and forces them to go along.
If the victim -- the gay person -- had money, of course he got a lawyer and would fight police in the courts, and in each of those instances, when it got to court (with an attorney present to represent the gay person)the victim would be released from custody. In Illinois, where I have some knowledge for instance, until 1960 when the law was changed, police routinely arrested gay men for no other reason than their admitted gayness, (or because police made that detirmination) and the gay men were (according to the laws against 'sodomy) either sent to prison for a period of two to fourteen years _or_ in the later years of the 'dark ages' (the pre-1960 recodification of the law) -- say the 1950's onward -- placed instead in an insane asylum. That is because many of the police and their supporters considered themesleves to be 'more enlightened' as time went on; an insane asylum was considered a better place than a prison.
If police chose to go that route (asylum rather than prison) the rule was you had to stay in the insane asylum for a minimum of two years -- the minimum period of time you would have otherwise been in prison for being gay, no other reason then they would cut you loose on parole to the asylum in the event you 'acted out' any further. In the asylum, technically you were to remain in custody until such time as you were fully and permanently recovered from your 'illness', but of course we know what a crock of shit that thing about your 'illness' is concerned.
As the laws changed, state by state over the next quarter-century or so there would still be instances where gay people would get into sexual situations in public places (or even in the privacy of their home where it was obvious to police) and continue to get arrested, have to spend a slight fortune on a defense attorney (who may or may not have been a sleazy son-of-a-bitch (most of them who did sex cases were in fact sleazy) in order to get out of the mess. I will discuss more about this in another installment here soon.
To discuss this in more detail, go to the Social Issues Forum
posted by Patrick Townson at 6:58 PM
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