Lesbians and gay men: still fighting discrimination
By Marina Cameron
SYDNEY — On June 19, NSW independent MP Clover Moore released details of a bill aimed at extending rights to gay, lesbian and unmarried couples which she intends to introduce into the Legislative Assembly in December.
The bill would allow people to apply to have a significant personal relationship (SPR) or a domestic relationship recognised and receive the same rights as those granted to de facto heterosexual couples. SPRs are defined to encompass a wide range of close relationships, including people who don't share accommodation, sexual relations or finances.
The bill would legislate equal rights for gay and lesbian couples to gain access to a sick partner, to inheritance and funeral arrangements if a partner dies without a will, to claim property at the end of a relationship, to have access to fertility services, to claim workers' compensation if a partner dies at work, or to be defined as a family in relation to social security, insurance, taxation and immigration. The areas of adoption and superannuation are not included, however.
According to Moore, the bill will allow people to have their relationship formally recognised if they choose, and also provide for people who choose not to. The NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has been running an information campaign around recognition of relationships and has been involved in formulating the legislation.
Discrimination continues
Despite an election promise to introduce legislation on equal rights for gay and lesbian couples, the NSW Labor government has not yet committed itself to supporting the bill. Even if the bill is passed, lesbians and gay men still face discrimination within the law, and society more generally.
Age of consent laws are more harshly applied to homosexuals, and only very recently have activists defeated Tasmania's laws outlawing homosexual sex.
The election of the Howard government also threatens increased discrimination. There has already been a tightening of film and video classifications, setting the basis for censorship of representations of gay and lesbian sexuality.
Senator Brian Harradine and members of the right-wing Lyons forum within the Liberal Party are lobbying for these images to be banned under the government's new, stricter Non-Violent Erotica classification for film and video. After such lobbying, the federal government announced in May that it will consider changing the Sex Discrimination Act to restrict access to sperm banks, fertility clinics and child adoption for unmarried women (i.e. lesbians).
Discrimination in employment and education is also a persistent problem, and the high incidence of violence against gays and lesbians is the most visible evidence of continuing homosexual oppression.
The Sydney Morning Herald on June 23 noted the results of the first national study to examine abuse of young gay and bisexual men. It found that more than two-thirds of the respondents reported being verbally or physically abused in any one year and 13% of men under 20 said that they had been bashed during the previous year.
The Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project in Sydney reports that gay men are four times more likely than other men to suffer a physical assault and lesbians are six times more likely. Based on anecdotal evidence and the increased rate of reporting, violence against gay men and lesbians is on the increase.
As Catherine Lumby wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 21, "The political landscape is littered with signs that the tolerance of diversity is faltering. And, as history shows, when attacks on the racial and ethnic composition of a society begin, calls for sexual uniformity are rarely far behind."
Resistance activist, Wendy Robertson, told Green Left, "Despite the efforts of many to convince lesbians and gay men that the struggle is over, there is still a big fight to wage for full legal, social and economic equality.
"If gay and lesbian relationships are legally recognised, it will be a significant step forward. The Tasmanian experience shows that even formal legal equality is very hard to get if it isn't backed up by a strong, mobilised, public campaign. We need to tackle the law and the government, but we also need to go out there and campaign against homophobia on the streets and convince the majority of the population that equality is in the interests of society as a whole."