Pride
This week lesbians and gays celebrate Stonewall, a milestone in the struggle for gay liberation. In Brisbane the occasion is marked by the Pride Festival, a series of political, social and cultural events for lesbians, gays and everyone who supports the struggle for an end to oppression on the basis of sexuality.
Until 1990 homosexual sex between consenting adults was criminal behaviour in Queensland.
Today section 28 of the so-called "Anti-Discrimination Act", introduced by the Goss Labor Government, preserves the ability of employers to discriminate against employees who engage in lawful sexual conduct but who work with children or the intellectually disabled.
Just as one institutionalised form of oppression is removed, another springs up to replace it.
Section 28 is more subtle and effective than the old Criminal Code provisions. It does not specifically mention homosexuality or homosexual acts. It is not restricted to gay men. It authorises discrimination by employers, rather than prosecution by the state. Even if section 28 is never invoked in a court, it will be used, privately, to bolster discrimination by employers or to threaten lesbian and gay workers.
But it serves more to subdue the movement than for any other purpose. It is a psychological weapon in the war waged against those who do not pay the necessary lip service to lifelong heterosexual monogamy. Lesbian and gay teachers, nurses, child-care workers and disability service workers can be in no doubt that their sexuality, should it become known to their workmates and employers, could cost them their jobs.
Section 28 is just one more illustration of the interrelationship between the movements for gay and women's liberation. Both movements demand an end to restrictive codes governing sexuality. Both demand freedom to choose in matters which, in a free and democratic society, should be purely personal. Both face subtle psychological weapons which serve to reduce self-esteem, endanger personal security and demoralise individual activists and potential activists.
Procuring or performing an abortion in Queensland is still illegal. However, this law is not "enforced" at present. Abortion clinics do exist, and Anne Warner, the only woman in Goss' cabinet, says she can't understand what we are complaining about.
But enforced or not, the law reduces access to abortions by restricting them to clinics which operate in an atmosphere of fear and semi-secrecy. It tells women that their abortion is an illegal and immoral act. It restricts the advice which is given to women by health and their friends and relations.
Like lesbians and gays, women who don't "do the wife and mother bit" are undermined by oppressive laws and attitudes. Their appearance, their sexual choices, their "shrillness", "butchness", "weirdness", "irresponsibility" or "aggression" make them the targets of harassment by sexist louts and legislators alike.
It takes pride continue to struggle against this barrage of personal abuse.
Even after the obvious legal blocks have been removed and we have the legal right to vote, or to have sex with the partner of our choice, or to own property or stand for parliament, we still need pride to fight the ongoing battle against enforced economic slavery within the family. That war is still to be won.
So feminists should take strength from the collective pride of the lesbian and gay liberation movement. In fact, in order to remain political, we need to affirm and strengthen pride in the entire progressive movement.
By Karen Fletcher