The Hero parade
Thirty years on from the passage of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill, two of the law’s champions recall the battle. Adam Dudding reports.
It was 1985, the world was changing too fast for some, and all around New Zealand bewildered bigots were rising from their slumbers to save us from the gays. ‘‘Homosexuality is definitely sinful,’’ said a horrified Keith Hay, the house-building millionaire, devout Protestant and one-time Mt Roskill mayor, to reporter Tony Reid. ‘‘If this legislation is passed you might come home and find a man on the back of your son. Legally there. It will be happening under the trees and bushes.’’
‘‘This legislation’’ was a private member’s bill, the Homosexual Law Reform Bill, which was drafted by gay lawyers Don McMorland and Alan Ivory, and introduced to Parliament by second-term Labour MP Fran Wilde.
For 16 months Wilde, backed by a core of gay activists and a slowly growing proportion of the wider public, pushed the bill, but the outcome was far from certain, right till the last minute. There was ferocious opposition from Christian groups and social conservatives inside and outside Parliament. A ‘‘Coalition of Concerned Citizens’’ petition claimed to have collected 800,000 signatures.
All the same, just before 10pm on July 9, 1986, the bill was passed by 49 votes to 44. Next Saturday a ‘‘Rainbow Gala Extravaganza’’ to mark the anniversary will be held at Auckland’s SkyCity, MCed by Ali Mau and Colin Mathura-Jeffree.
While Wilde watched the vote unfold that night in Parliament, James Peters of the ‘‘Auckland Gay Task Force’’ was waiting for the news with a bottle of Champagne at the ready. Here the two of them recall scenes from their battle to fix a ‘‘black hole’’ in our human rights.
Fran Wilde
‘‘Gay activists were lobbying all new candidates, and when they came to me I said of course I’d support it. Then after the election they came back and said guess what, we want you to introduce the bill to Parliament.
I was a young straight woman and that probably made it safer in a funny way, because no one could say it was self-interest. The campaign was about giving the public information to displace ignorance, and then getting them to lobby their MPs on it as a human right issue.
Straight away fundamentalist churches and other conservative groups started organising. The day they presented the petition they had the Girls and Boys Brigade, with the New Zealand flag, singing hymns and the national anthem. It was Nuremberg rally-kind of scary. But it backfired on them because it was pure prejudice, and people said we don’t want this in New Zealand.
I was doing talkback with [Invercargill National MP] Norm Jones, and somebody rang in and asked ‘‘What would you do if your son was gay?’’ and he said ‘‘I’d lock him up in a mental institution’’. It was so homophobic and hateful. None of the bill’s opponents were interested in love, or affection, or relationships – they were obsessed with bodily functions, and in the most explicit way.
The real heroes were the gay men who came out. Most men were in the closet and people would say ‘‘I don’t know any gay people’’, when of course they would be working with gay people or had family members – brothers, sons.
These were ordinary people who suddenly said: ‘‘Oh there’s another thing. I’m gay.’’ It helped us no end, but if we’d failed they’d have been in a very difficult position.
I got tonnes of hate mail, with threats to kill me. A lot of people outside Wellington assumed I was lesbian so there’d be letters about that too.
When the numbers were given to the Speaker the place erupted. There was a big party that night, as I recall. The sky didn’t fall in. Western civilisation didn’t end.
At the time it was just a black hole in our human rights legislation and we had to make it right, but the difference it’s made to thousands of people’s lives has been major. I love it when I meet someone and they say ‘‘it made a difference to me’’.
James Peters
‘‘One night on the TV news I saw [gay activist] Peter Wall at a public meeting where the fundamentalists opposing the bill were coming up with rhetoric so inflammatory and unbalanced that Peter couldn’t contain himself. I saw a policeman drag him out.
There was a meeting at Alfies nightclub the next Wednesday and I went along with some fear and trepidation. I’d never thought of myself as an activist but sometimes you’ve got to stand up and be counted. I started raising funds for an advertisement in the
Herald and then I was asked to join the Auckland Gay Task Force.
I went home thinking it’ll only be three or four months before it’s voted on, but the National Party MPs filibustered the bill for years.
I was 43. I was a businessman. I had been out since I was 18 or 19 and I’d been determined to live an open life, not be a closet gay.
I’ve been one of the lucky ones. But I sometimes helped out at a home for wayward kids who’d often been thrown out of home because of their sexuality.
This bill had to pass. Young people were committing suicide.
It was only in the last two to three months that we felt the tide turning.
Our private polling showed that the more the opposing forces brought people in from overseas, the less popular they became. New Zealanders like fairness, and the last thing we like is being told how to act and think by outsiders.
On the night it passed we were in front of the news with a bottle of Champagne ready, and we figured either way, we’d drink it.
We were apprehensive but quietly confident.
After the bill went through the front door opened and neighbours and friends came in and we opened the Champagne.
Then we went to a nightclub and I think I danced till the early hours. There was a wonderful feeling of relief and camaraderie.
The real heroes were the gay men who came out. Fran Wilde