Gay art exhibition banned

By Leon Harrison

PERTH — The annual gay art exhibition, which was to be staged at the Western Australian Museum during the 1995 Pride Festival, has been banned. The exhibition, entitled "Queer as Hell" and organised by That Way Inclined Gay and Lesbian Arts Group, was banned by the western museum director Andrew Reeves after the museum had been deluged with complaints through a campaign orchestrated by Richard Egan, a spokesperson for various fundamentalist Christian groups, including the Right to Life and the Australian Family Association. They all operate from the National Civic Council offices.

Egan organised for the West Australian newspaper be flooded with letters opposing the exhibition. In an article in that paper on September 4, Reeves exposed himself as just another homophobe. He said the museum found the activities planned for the exhibition's launch inappropriate and would never have been approved them if it had been aware of them.

These activities included an appearance by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and a gay poetry reading.

Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay rights spokesperson Brian Greig accused the museum of breaching federal human rights law by discriminating on the basis of sexual preference.

The group could appeal to the Federal Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

Greig said lesbians and gay men were citizens and taxpayers and had every right to use public facilities. "It is frightening to think that a museum has banned an exhibition on the basis of an artist's identity", he said.

On September 3, 20 of the gay artists involved voted to meet museum representatives and insist that the exhibition go ahead. They will try to meet next week.

From GLW issue 202