Crossing the Line. Gay blood review continues unfair stigma

1988 image of Rodney Croome being arrested. Image from here

Rodney Croome: Crossing the Line

A number of evangelical Christians have officially objected to a Hobart City Council plan to install a public artwork commemorating the arrests of gay rights supporters at Hobart’s Salamanca Place in 1988.

The original arrests occurred after the Council banned the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group’s stall at the popular Saturday morning Salamanca Market.

The stall was set up to gather petition signatures in support of decriminalising homosexuality, but the Council said it didn’t want any homosexuals in its “family market”, so it closed the stall down.

The TGLRG felt this was discriminatory, re-established the stall, and the Council brought in the police.

There were 130 arrests making it the biggest act of gay civil rights disobedience in Australian history.

Huge protests ensued and the Council was forced to allow the TGLRG stall.

Then in 2008 the Council apologised for the arrests and allocated $15,000 for the artwork the evangelicals are now objecting to.

The Salamanca arrests were a kind of mass coming out for LGBTI Tasmanians.

We crossed the line from silence and resignation to vocal and defiant assertion of our place in Tasmanian society.

Those who were prepared to be arrested had to literally cross the line because the jurisdiction of the Council ran just behind the TGLRG stall.

This idea of crossing the line is the theme of the artwork.

Two lines of text that speak of courage and acceptance will be embedded in the footpath near one of the arrest sites.

People walking along Salamanca Place will have to decide whether to step over them.

This is a choice the evangelical objectors do not want to make.

I understand their argument is that stepping over the text will be too confronting for them and their families.

It seems the same kind of people who once drew boundaries around homosexuals, restricting our full participation in society, are now the ones who are trapped.

Society has moved on leaving them hemmed in by their own prejudices behind the lines they drew to exclude others, utterly unable to reach out and acknowledge that what unites us is more important than what divides us.

First published on the Gay News Network, here

Michael Cain: Gay blood review continues unfair stigma

Like other Australians who have safe sex in monogamous relationships, I am at virtually zero risk from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. But because my partner is another man, I cannot donate my blood to save the lives of other people.

This absurd situation prompted me to take a landmark case to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal in 2008. The tribunal decided it didn’t have the power to overrule the gay blood ban. But it did move the issue forward in two important ways.

It dismissed the Red Cross’s claim that all gay men are at high risk of contracting STIs, and acknowledged that the research this claim is based on looks at only the tiny cohort of those gay men who have multiple casual partners and/or unsafe sex.

When health stats for the gay community as a whole were fed into the mathematical models the tribunal commissioned, it became clear that the risk of someone like me giving blood is less than many of the heterosexuals who can currently donate.

The other important recommendation from the ADT was an independent review into the gay blood ban.

The Red Cross acted on this recommendation by commissioning a review chaired by Professor Steve Wesselingh. His report was released yesterday, and recommends the gay deferral period – the period I have to wait between having sex and giving blood – be reduced from a year to six months.

If implemented, this will be a cosmetic change and not a real step-forward.

It will mean the overwhelming majority of gay men who, like me, have safe blood to donate are still banned from donating.

It will mean the Australian blood supply will continue to stay only a day or two ahead of demand.

It will mean gay men will continue to be stigmatised as a threat to public health.

What’s particularly frustrating for me is that the review seems to have ignored key evidence presented in the Tasmanian case.

While it accepts that some gay men are at lower risk than others, it still grossly overestimates the risk associated with male-to-male sex.

It continues to base its conclusions – particularly about the prevalence of HIV and other STIs in the gay community – on studies of the minority of gay men who frequent sex venues, clubs and bars.

The solution to the gay blood donor issue is simple: we need a policy that screens people for what actually puts them at risk of contracting blood-borne diseases, not proxies for risk.

In practise, such a policy would screen all potential donors for the safety of their sexual activity rather than the gender of their sexual partner.

I am still optimistic we will achieve this kind of rational policy, free of the preconceptions about gay men that have influenced the Wesselingh review. The question is when.

At the current rate my partner and I will be able to marry before we can donate blood, which would be a truly bizarre situation.

I believe the only way to break through the myths and misconceptions that surround this issue is for there to be a truly independent review commissioned, not by the organisation whose policies are in question, but by the Federal Government.

Michael Cain’s complaint to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal against the Red Cross gay blood ban led to the world’s first fully-fledged judicial hearing on the issue in Tasmania in 2008.

First published on ABC’s The Drum website: here

• AUSTRALIAN MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Media Release
7th June 2012

NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER TO VOTE FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Australian advocates of marriage equality have praised the conservative Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, for declaring he will vote in favour of the reform when a bill is introduced into the nation’s Parliament. The news comes as a new polls shows support for marriage equality in New Zealand is 63%, a similar level to Australia. (Report here: http://www.3news.co.nz/Poll-shows-support-for-same-sex-marriage/tabid/1607/articleID/256909/Default.aspx ).

Mr Key’s support means that both leaders of New Zealand’s two major parties – the Labour and National parties – now support the issue. Draft bills for same-sex marriage are set to be introduced into the Parliament as early as next month.

Marriage equality advocates have called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition leader Tony Abbott to follow the lead of their New Zealand counterparts.

“Australia’s political leaders are falling well behind their internations counter-parts on this reform”

“Prime Ministers and Presidents around the world, conservative & liberal, have openned their hearts to same-sex marriage. Australians want our leaders to do the same.” said Alex Greenwich, national convener of Australian Marriage Equality.

Mr Greenwich called on Federal Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, to stop breaking coalition tradition and grant a free vote on the legislation.

“If conservatives like John Key and David Cameron can support marriage equality, the least Mr Abbott should do is offer his MPs a conscience vote on the issue,” said Mr Greenwich.

A Galaxy poll commissioned by News Limited last month found that 77% of Coalition voters want Mr Abbott to allow conscience vote on the issue, and 61% of voters want to see marriage equality achieved in this term of government (details here).

CLERGY & ADVOCATES THANK SUNRISE FOR SUPPORT

Australian Marriage Equality has joined various clergy and nearly 40,000 Australians in thanking Sunrise for supporting marriage equality.

“Sunrise has their finger on the pulse of public opinion. Their support for reform represents the aspirations of a majority of Australians to make our country an equal and fair place for same-sex couples” AME National Convener Alex Greenwich said.

A number of clergy including Surry Hills Baptist pastor Mike Hercock, ACT Uniting Church minister Roger Munson, and Victorian Anglican Minister, Prof Emeritus Rev Gary Bouma, have also praised Sunrise for their support:

“We thank Sunrise and marie claire for supporting the marriage equality campaign. Jesus preached a message of inclusion not exclusion” said Rev Roger Munson.

This comes as the Australian Christian Lobby has made a formal complaint against the show for supporting the issue, full release and information here