The gay community’s struggle for equality

The week before last Tasmania led the nation not once but thrice on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) issues.

On Thursday May 16th a new permanent public artwork, The Yellow Line, was unveiled commemorating the arrests of gay rights supporters at Salamanca Market in 1988, as well as the Hobart City’s Council’s 2008 apology for ordering the arrests.

According to the accompanying plaque recalling the events of 1988, the artwork represents the line around the Market which supporters of the gay rights market stall could be arrested for crossing “as well as the other lines that LGBTI people and their supporters have been forbidden by law and prejudice to cross”.

The Salamanca memorial is different to other memorials. By highlighting the official Council apology for the Salamanca arrests, as well as the arrests themselves, it commemorates reconciliation as well as oppression, giving hope for a better future. It promotes empathy by embedding into the landscape a graphic representation of the limits placed on LGBTI people and challenging others to imagine what they would do if faced with the same kind of boundaries.

Most of all, it speaks to universal values in an intensely personal way. The sentences embedded in the footpath are “Forgive me for not holding you in my arms” and “In the wake of your courage I swim”. Both are responses by the creator of the artwork, Justy Phillips, not just to the events of 1988 and 2008, but to the importance of courage and forgiveness, as illustrated by these events. It is this public recognition of some of the deepest and most personal forces for good in our lives which makes the Salamanca memorial one of a kind.

Media releases about the unveiling can be found below.

Three relevant news items can be found here:

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/05/17/379396_tasmania-news.html
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/05/16/3760661.htm
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/05/15/379282_opinion.html

The second important recent event was the launch of a new state government LGBTI suicide prevention action plan. The action plan addresses the all-too-high suicide rates among LGBTI people caused by prejudice and stigma. Like the artwork, the action plan is the first of its kind in Australia. A government media release on the action plan can be found here: http://www.premier.tas.gov.au/media_room/media_releases/lgbti_community_working_together_on_suicide_prevention

Then there was the release of the Australia’s report to the United Nations about our national human rights record. In the section dealing with progress on LGBTI human rights, Tasmania is cited more than all the other states put together. There is a particular focus on they ways we are combatting homophobic prejudice in schools. Several other states have written to our Education Department asking for advice on how they can do what we are doing.

The state once dubbed “Bigot’s Island” in the UK press for retaining anti-gay laws long after they had disappeared elsewhere, is now setting global benchmarks for equality and inclusion. This should be a source of great pride for all Tasmanians, not just those in the LGBTI community. It speaks to how we are capable of being one of the world’s great island societies. It is a reminder of how our generosity of spirit and our creativity have a global reach.

These are points that cannot be made too often, especially after our recent “griffithisation”.

The Tasmania-focussed edition of the Griffith Review published earlier this year, and the ensuring public debate, dismayed me greatly. Some of the contributors were insightful and constructive. But too many condescended to their subject, ignoring Tasmania’s success and seeing only our failures. They struck the unsympathetic pose poor intellectuals mistake for objectivity, and is all-too common among those who feel turned out by their tight-knit society. Their haughty disdain was that of a child gazing at bacteria down a microscope. From this vantage point they were incapable of understanding what really makes Tasmanians who we are. Tasmania can only be made sense of from within, with an eye to all it was, is and can be.

A true account of Tasmania must include the kind of events that occurred the week before last. These events prompt us to ask the critical questions that arose too rarely during the Griffith Review debate. Why do we focus obsessively on our failures? Under what conditions do we succeed? How do we understand the paradoxes that propel us forward? How do we begin to explain ourselves in our own terms, and not the prejudicial and mostly-irrelevant terms set by others? The answers to these questions will provide us the genuine self-comprehension that too rarely arises in the current debate about the future and meaning of Tasmania.

Here are two media releases about the launch including the text of the artwork and the text of the interpretative plaque.

TASMANIAN GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS GROUP

Media Release
Friday May 17th 2013

UNVEILING OF COMMEMORATIVE ARTWORK “A DEEPLY MOVING OCCASION”

The unveiling of a new public artwork commemorating the arrests of gay rights supporters at Hobart’s Salamanca Place in 1988 has been described as a deeply moving occasion by Hobart Lord Mayor, Damon Thomas.

The unveiling, on the eve of the International Day Against Homophobia, was attended by 150 people, many if whom were arrested in 1988.

Mr Thomas spoke at the unveiling together with Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group spokesperson, Rodney Croome, Rainbow Communities Tasmania spokesperson, Julian Punch, and artist Justy Phillips.

Ms Phillips’ artwork, titled “The Yellow Line”, is made up of two sentences embedded across the footpath and lit yellow/orange from below. The two sentences are

FORGIVE ME FOR NOT HOLDING YOU IN MY ARMS

and

IN THE WAKE OF YOUR COURAGE I SWIM.

The artwork commemorates the arrest of LGBTI rights supporters who defied a ban on a gay law reform stall in Salamanca Market in 1988, and the Hobart City Council’s official apology for the arrests in 2008.

In particular, it commemorates the Market boundary supporters of the stall were arrested for crossing.

Between the two sentences is a plaque explaining the artwork and the events it recalls.

At the launch Ms Phillips said,

“The Yellow Line is first and foremost a memory of the injustice of the arrests that took place on this site in 1988. But it is also something else. Something less easy to define. A line is not just a divide. This line connects each and every one of us to this place. It is an opportunity to protect. An invitation to embrace. It is a moment to stand.”

Mr Croome, who spoke on behalf of those who were arrested in 1988, said,

“I see in this artwork the promise that the hard-of-heart will seek forgiveness for what was said and done, and those they hurt shall have the courage to offer it.

Mr Punch, whose group contributed $7000 to the artwork, said,

“The Yellow Line sums up so well the struggle of LGBTI people who have had to ‘cross the line’ to achieve equality. This is a holy place, a place of pilgrimage where people will come to honour courage and humanity.”

The Yellow Line is situated on the footpath of Salamanca Place next to where arrests occurred in 1988 immediately outside Parliament House and across from the Supreme Court.

Mr Croome said, “on a daily basis our politicians will have to step over the Yellow Line on their way to and from work, and thereby be reminded of the critical role they play in imposing and removing the barriers faced by LGBTI people”.

The Hobart City Council contributed $15,000 to the production of the commemorative artwork at the same time as it apologised for the Salamanca Market arrests in 2008.

Both the apology and the artwork are the first of their kind in Australia.

Three relevant news items can be found here:

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/05/17/379396_tasmania-news.html
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/05/16/3760661.htm
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/05/15/379282_opinion.html

Media release from the Hobart City Council and the text of the plaque.

Thursday 16th May 2013

SALAMANCA COMMEMORATIVE ARTWORK – ‘THE YELLOW LINE’

The City of Hobart’s most recent public art project has a subtle, but powerful message embedded in the pavement at Salamanca Place.

Lord Mayor Alderman Damon Thomas said, “Five years ago the Council made a public apology for the arrests that occurred at Salamanca Market in 1988 and allocated $15,000 for public artwork to commemorate these events.

The arrests occurred when the Council banned the Tasmanian Gay Law Reform Group’s stall at Salamanca Market that was set up to gather signatures in support of decriminalising homosexuality.

At the time, there were 130 arrests making it the biggest act of gay civil rights disobedience in Australian history. To be arrested, activists had to cross a yellow line set up by the Council at the Market,” said Alderman Thomas.

The TGLRG stall has been a fixture of the Market ever since. On the 9th December 2008, the Hobart City Council apologised for its actions in 1988 and acknowledged the prejudice that was fostered against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (GLBTI) people.

“Over an extensive period, the Council has worked closely with the project group involving representatives from Rainbow Communities Tasmania and the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group and other members of the GLBTI community to develop the project.

“During the development period Rainbow Communities Tasmania Inc. Rainbow Art Exhibition raised $7000 as a contribution to the project. These funds, in combination with the Council’s financial contribution to the project, ensured the engagement of a significant artist to undertake the commission.”

“The Council worked very closely with the project group to develop a brief for the public art commission. This brief, involving a number of broad themes, was advertised nationally and the Council was fortunate to get Justy Phillips on board.“

“Justy is currently undertaking her PhD Creative Media at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), focussing her research on the human condition and the marginalisation of individuals and communities within society.”

The text of the plaque

The Yellow Line

Justy Phillips, 2013. Aluminium, acrylic, light-emitting diodes

Between September and December 1988, the Hobart City Council called on the Tasmanian police to make 130 arrests for trespass at Salamanca Market. In August that year the Tasmanian Gay Law Reform Group (TGLRG) had begun leasing a stall at the Market so that supporters could sign a petition calling on the state parliament to repeal laws that criminalised homosexuality.

In mid-September officials of the Hobart
City Council informed the TGLRG that the Council deemed the stall ‘offensive’ and
that it would be banned. They warned that anyone attempting to set up the stall would be arrested. As other Market stallholders
and members of the public came out in support, the grounds for a charge of trespass expanded, with display of the words ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ or possession of the petition considered reasons for arrest.

As the arrests increased, an ever-larger number of supporters came to the Market each week to protest against what they saw as a breach of human rights.

On 9th December 1988 the Hobart City Council lifted its ban on the TGLRG stall when it was revealed that the Council held no authority
to prosecute for trespass. Charges against those who had been arrested were dropped the following week. By this stage the arrests had become the largest act of gay rights civil disobedience in Australian history.

The TGLRG stall has been a fixture of the Market ever since. On 9th December 2008, the Hobart City Council apologised for its actions in 1988 and acknowledged the prejudice that was fostered against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (GLBTI) people.

This artwork symbolises the line around the Market that supporters of the stall would face arrest for crossing, as well as the other lines that GLBTI people and their supporters have been forbidden by law and prejudice to cross. It stands as public acknowledgement of the events of 1988 and the Hobart City Council’s apology 20 years later.

This project has been initiated by the Hobart City Council in partnership with the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group and Rainbow Communities Tasmania Inc.

• Christine Milne

Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne has always stood up for marriage equality. From winning the community campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in Tasmania, to marching in this year’s Mardi Gras with her son Tom – full equality for LGBTI Australians is part of who she is.

Please watch this new video which shows why Christine is proud to be fighting for marriage equality in 2013.

Watch the video:

http://greensmps.org.au/content/video/christine-milne-stands-equality