1989. Politics: Western Australia’s own Clause 28
Most of us are familiar with Britain’s notorious Clause 28 (of the 1988 Local Government Act), which prevented local authorities from funding anything that might be viewed as ‘promoting’ homosexuality. Created by Conservative MPs, supported by Conservative MPs (albeit with support from the Labour opposition in its early stages) and enacted by the Conservative Government it’s natural to conclude that it is the consequence of a conservative mind-set.
And yet, only a year after its passage through the British Parliament, the Labor-led Western Australian government passed legislation that actually surpassed Clause 28 in its constraints and bigotry. This particular piece of legislation was the 1989 Law Reform (Decriminalisation of Sodomy) Act.
Judging from the title of the legislation – decriminalisation of sodomy – one would expect it to be a good thing. But the government went out of its way to make it clear that it was doing so very reluctantly. For example, the Preamble to the Act included the following statements:
• “…the Parliament disapproves of sexual relations between persons of the same sex;”
• “…the Parliament disapproves of the promotion or encouragement of homosexual behaviour;”
• “…the Parliament does not by its act in removing any criminal penalty for sexual acts in private between persons of the same sex wish to create a change in community attitude to homosexual behaviour;”
It wasn’t necessary to read between the lines to realise that Parliament didn’t like queers at all!
But just to emphasise the point, the Act also created a new class of ‘homosexual offences’, making it a crime to “…promote or encourage homosexual behaviour as part of the teaching in any primary or secondary educational institutions…” Furthermore, it was “contrary to public policy to encourage or promote homosexual behaviour and the encouragement or promotion of homosexual behaviour shall not be capable of being a public purpose.”
In many ways it had the hallmarks of Britain’s 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which ‘decriminalised’ homosexuality but with so many exemptions that it actually increased the number of prosecutions of gay men. Whilst prosecutions may not have increased in Western Australia, the message was still very similar – we’re decriminalising homosexuality very much against our better judgement.
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