Homophobia and Pride WA
BY ELENA JEFFREYS
PERTH — For 15 years the Pride WA parade has been based in Northbridge, which falls under the municipality of the City of Perth. It has been a successful event, with a steady increase in the number of people coming to watch. The parade itself has grown and changed over the years, from a marginalised protest to a mainstream festival — or so the Pride membership thought.
Mayor Peter Nattrass of Perth City Council has always been a thorn in the side of Pride. Lately he has been supported in the media by Liberal Premier Richard Court.
To the trained eye, homophobia in Western Australia is rampant, made practicable especially by Peter Foss's amendment to an ALP-sponsored bill to lower the age of consent for gay males in WA from 25 to 21 years in the late 1980s.
The ALP agreed to the Foss amendment in order to get its bill passed through the upper house which was (and had always been, since the inception of the WA parliament) controlled by conservatives.
At the last state election, the Greens (WA) and Australian Democrats successfully changed the balance in the upper house, making deals like the ALP-Foss one seem superfluous. Indeed, the Foss amendment has changed more about queer life in WA than the ALP bill ever could. It makes the "promotion" of alternative sexuality illegal in WA, and has blocked campaigns like the Freedom Centre "Here for life" youth suicide project.
Worst laws in Australia
WA now has the worst sexuality laws in the country. The laws in Tasmania were worse but a grassroots campaign brought about much change, which was a focus for queer activism in 1997. But has the queer movement learnt from this experience? On the mainland many lobby groups have tried to "mimic" the Tasmanian campaign.
The community-based Tasmanian approach has been unmatched for results by the corporate lobbying and political correctness of the lesbian and gay law reform groups. As a spokesperson for Gays and Lesbians for Equality (GALE) said at the WA Intervarsity Queer conference last month: "If you are unimpressed with the content of statements coming from law reform groups, remember they are not targeted at you, they are targeted at politicians". My thoughts exactly.
In 1997, Queer Radical was reprimanded even before the Pride parade began, for introducing politics into what the Pride convenor that year described as a "non-political" event. Strangely, a turn of events in WA has brought Pride around full circle.
This atmosphere of confident complacency was dominant at the Pride 2000 special general meeting, which had on the agenda a decision about the location for this year's parade. Tony Costa, mayor of Subiaco, had prepared a slick presentation along with the "Pro-Subi" small business owners' lobby group.
Costa declared Subiaco a "city for everybody", encouraging Pride to decide to abandon Northbridge and move the parade over the railway line to their neck of the woods. This is also the neck of the woods for a large contingent of Pride membership, Subiaco being a yuppie suburb, very popular with double-income-no-kids queers.
The cry from the masses was to take our event "out of the ghetto", and Subiaco, with an enthusiastic mayor wooing us, seemed the right place to go. The vote of the members was in favour of Subiaco. The membership were empowered by this invitation and it showed, in their belief that a decision to move the festival was as simple as the vote they made.
Uproar
The Pride membership could not have been more mistaken. Almost overnight the uproar began. It came from all directions. The misinformation campaign was thick and fast from the homophobes on the battle front in Subiaco.
Headlines in the Post and other local newspapers were only beaten for bigot value by the multitudes that showed up to the Subiaco Town Council meeting on April 27. There were arguments against Subiaco's "family" atmosphere being tainted by the Pride festival, as well as arguments against the festival in general.
Only one councillor, Maria Harries, a social work lecturer at the University of Western Australia, was brave enough to condemn the homophobia and support the parade.
The council couldn't get the numbers to actually rescind its original decision to invite Pride. It would have needed a special majority and even with Tony Costa sick the numbers didn't add up. What it did manage to do was to fund a survey of ratepayers, and place a hold on enacting their "desire" to invite Pride until a positive survey result is achieved.
Perth City Council has been encouraged by this tactic to carry out a homophobic campaign of their own. Though it can't get the numbers to simply reject Pride altogether, it has followed the survey model and is carrying out an even bigger survey of the Perth area.
A problem for Pride is that people who live in the sticks but own commercial properties in the CBD get as many votes as they own plots of land, resulting in people from all over WA gaining a vote in the Pride or no-Pride decision.
When the hammer came down, compromise and hidden agendas have been the winners so far. "But we are consulting" was the cry from those responsible. Political correctness has won out and actually given a platform for more discriminatory practices on behalf of local councils in inner city Perth.
And what of the queer community during this consultation process? This is what we get for stepping outside the ghetto and trying something new? Perhaps this is the shake-up that Pride needed to get active and become a grassroots organisation again.
Kerry McGlucken, Pride co-convenor for 2000, happily admitted that Pride is in essence a political event, and as long as it faces opposition from the powerful institutions of society will remain so.
The fight
This raises the question, "What are we fighting for?" This was a topic of more unofficial discussion at the Intervarsity Queer conference in WA.
The fight about where Pride will be held is only the tip of the iceberg, exposing the homophobia that is experienced by queer people every day. It has shaken Pride WA out of its professional lobbying focus and reawakened activist intentions.
Pride WA is now coordinating a grassroots campaign against the Perth City Council survey and this will definitely spill over to the festival this year.
I feel the most important focus for the queer community is holding the banner for marginalised groups, whether this is to do with sexuality or not.
Young people are the most invisible in our society, and their opportunities to self-realise goals and dreams are minimal in our conservative police state. Entwined with this is the overbearing institution of marriage, coupling and the never ending enforcement of capitalist patriarchal traditions such as domestic violence.
At Queer Collaborations 2000 I hope the queer community will be able to articulate its position on "gay marriage", for, if not, the lesbian and gay lobby groups will articulate it for us, and we will all be party to a reinforcement of the oppressive nature of contemporary society.
[The author is Queer Radical convenor and a member of the Greens (WA), and will also be the Greens (WA) candidate standing against Richard Court at the next state election. She can be contacted on (08) 9382 4691.]