Peter Tatchell: ‘Marriage equality, and nothing less’

March 12, 2011
Issue 
Peter Tatchell.

Peter Tatchell is an internationally renowned lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, intersex and queer (LGTBIQ) human rights activist based in England. He was one of eight “heroes” selected to take part in the lead float of the 2011 Sydney Mardi Gras.

Tatchell spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Rachel Evans, Hannah Wykes and Farida Iqbal about his history of activism and the fight for equal marriage rights.

***

When did you get involved in activist politics?

I was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1952. At high school I got involved in campaigns for Aboriginal rights and against the death penalty.

I was campaigning against the execution of Ronald Ryan, which we couldn’t stop. The [government] killed him in February 1967.

The following year, I woke up to the reality of what the US and Australian governments were doing in Vietnam. I joined the draft resisters union when I was only 16 — too young to be drafted.

In 1969, I realised I was gay. In Melbourne at that time, there were no helplines or switchboards or organisations to help young people coming out.

I tried to encourage gay friends of mine to campaign for gay rights, but they were all too scared. So I operated as a do-it-yourself freelance activist — writing letters to newspapers, protesting against their homophobic coverage or just to highlight abuse of gay people.

I moved to London in 1971 and got involved in a newly formed group — the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). I moved as I always wanted to travel and had a possible job, but also, as I was not prepared to register for national service.

I did not want to fight in Vietnam. I did not agree with the war. It was an unjust and immoral conflict.

How did the LGBTIQ struggle develop in England?

The GLF fizzled out by mid-1970s, so I got more involved in left politics and various single-issue campaigns, such as anti-apartheid and the campaign for nuclear disarmament.

The Conservative Thatcher government introduced “Section 28” in 1988 that banned the so-called promotion of homosexuality. This was the first new anti-gay law for more than a century.

The law didn’t define how homosexuality was “promoted”. Everyone was targeted with the law — local councils, health and education authorities.

What groups were you involved with in the 80s?

In 1987, I co-founded the world’s first AIDS and human rights campaign — the UK AIDS Vigil Organisation, which later emerged as ACTUP [the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power] London.

Then, in 1990, I was one of 30 people who came together to create the queer rights direct action group — OutRage!

The campaign that attracted the biggest vilification by politicians, the media and religious leaders was the leafleting of schools with a flyer saying “Its okay to be gay.”

We initiated this campaign in 1992. Then we received a huge backlash in the outing of the ten Anglican bishops in 1994, and then the disruption of an Easter service in the Anglican Canterbury Cathedral.

At this time, 1998, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey was advocating legal discrimination against gay people, and refusing to meet with the LGBTI community or any Christians who were part of his own church and disagreed with his position.

We didn’t disrupt any sacred parts of the sermon but at a quiet moment, unfurled placards and I addressed the congregation, condemning Dr Carey's opposition to an equal age of consent, homosexual marriage, gay fostering and employment rights for lesbians and gay men.

As a result of these various actions, I was denounced as “public enemy number one”, and “homosexual terrorist”. I came under significant fire.

This condemnation hit a turning point in 1999 and 2001 when I and three other members of OutRage! attempted a citizen’s arrest of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe on charges of torture and other human rights abuses.

Suddenly all of my critics began applauding me as a hero. It was quite bizarre and unexpected.

You have been attacked by other governments too?

In 1973, I attended the first ever gay rights rally in East Germany and was arrested and interrogated by the Stasi [secret police].

In 1983, I stood as a left-wing candidate for the Labour Party and was widely vilified on account of my left-wing politics and my support for LGBTIQ rights.

That response against me is generally recognised as being the dirtiest and most violent election campaign in recent times.

I received dozens of death threats, three attempts to run me down in a car, bricks through my windows, three arson attempts on my home, and a bullet through the front door. No surprise that I lost.

It was the dirtiest campaign in England in the 20th century. I was the democratically selected Labour candidate, but there was not much support from head office during the campaign.

I left Labour in 2000, appalled by its right-wing drift under Tony Blair. Four years later in 2004, I joined the Green Party and I am its human rights spokesperson for England and Wales.

Can you tell us about the marriage rights campaign in Britain?

Civil unions were introduced in England in 2004. There is little legal difference between civil marriage and civil unions. However, separate is not equal.

Gay people in Britain are banned from civil marriages and heterosexuals are banned from civil partnerships. Two wrongs don't make a right. Civil partnerships are fine for people who don't want to get married, but they are not equality.

If the government banned black people from getting married, but offered them civil partnerships instead, there would be an outcry.

Most people would say it was racist and a form of apartheid. Black people are not banned from getting married, but same-sex couples are.

Civil unions are a form of sexual apartheid. One law for same-sex couples, civil partnerships, and a separate law for opposite sex couples — civil marriages. We don't accept either of these legal exclusions.

This is why the Equal Love campaign [in Britain] is mounting political and legal challenges to sexual orientation discrimination in relationship law.



What’s happening with these challenges?

Late last year, four gay couples filed applications for civil marriages at their local registry offices, and four heterosexual couples sought civil partnerships. All were refused.

On the second of February, all eight couples filed a joint application in the European Court of Human Rights to overturn the two bans on gay civil marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships.

We expect it will take the European Court three to five years to issue a response.

But within a year, the British government has to file its justification for discrimination with the court.

One of our key arguments is that there is very little difference in the rights and responsibilities that go with civil marriages and civil partnerships. There is no justification for having two separate systems.

Are you fighting for marriage rights so as to be able to marry?

I personally would not want to get married. I agree with the feminist critique that marriage has an unsavoury history of sexism and patriarchy.

But as a human rights defender, I believe in equality and that couples should have the right to get married if they wish.

It's not up to me or politicians to dictate who can or cannot get married. I think civil partnerships are marriage-lite.

They underscore the second-class status of LGBTI people. It's time that civil marriages and civil partnerships were opened up to gay and straight couples without discrimination.

I also think it is time that we devise a whole new legal framework for what I have called a “civil commitment pact”. This would allow someone to nominate any significant other person in their life as their next of kin or inheritance beneficiary.

This might be a lover or partner but it could also be a lifelong best friend or a favourite niece or nephew.

When it comes to couples in long term sexual and emotional relationships, I am suggesting that the partners ought to be able to pick and mix from a menu of rights and responsibilities; to create a tailor-made partnership agreement, suited to their individual circumstance.

Civil Marriage and civil partnerships are too inflexible. The reality today is that there is a wide variety of relationships. Some partners live together while others live apart.

Many couples share their finances, but some maintain financial independence. A truly democratic partnership law should acknowledge and accommodate all these different relationship choices.

You courageously threw an egg at Mugabe for his dreadful position on LGBTI people and his attacks on human rights. You've also been very critical of the Ugandan government and its death penalty for homosexuality. How do you help the LGBTI rights movement within Africa, without coming across as a paternalistic enlightened white guy?

More than 70 countries still totally outlaw homosexuality in all circumstances. Several have the death penalty. Nearly 50 of these 70 countries are members of the Commonwealth.

Their laws were imposed on them by the British colonial administration in the 19th century: during the era of imperialism. They are not authentic indigenous national laws.

The Commonwealth proclaims its key values are democracy, human rights, liberty, and personal freedom, yet the leadership of the Commonwealth has consistently failed to condemn the persecution of LGBTI people in its member states.

The key way to challenge homophobia and transphobia in countries like Uganda, Iran and Russia, is by supporting the LGBTI movement there — and the mainstream human rights organisations in those countries who are also speaking out for freedom and equality.

Solutions can't be imposed from the West, they've got to come from within. International solidarity can play an important role, as it did in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

Many African countries like Uganda and Malawi have constitutions that guarantee equality and non-discrimination. They have also signed up to the anti-discrimination clauses of the African charter on human rights.

It’s time they honoured their own constitution and the human rights conventions that they have signed and pledged to uphold.

These constitutions don't deliver gay equality but Malawi and Uganda provide general commitments to human rights.

In your mind, who benefits from LGBTI oppression?

There is a clear link between the oppression of women and the oppression of LGBTI people. Homophobia and sexism are two dimensions of the same oppression.

Traditional heterosexual masculinity and patriarchy have historically been the key forces that have oppressed women and LGBTI people. That's why it's so important that the LGBTI movement aligns with struggles of female emancipation.

It is macho straight men who, down the ages, have demanded the second-class status of women and LGBTI people.

Can corporations deliver us liberation?

It's quite obvious that LGBTI people have fought for and won a significant degree of legal equality and social acceptance within the confines of a free market capitalist system.

These gains have not been given to us. We've had to fight long and hard.

But this freedom is somewhat ambiguous in that it has gone hand-in-hand with the corporate commercialisation of LGBTI culture.

Nowadays we are so often wooed as consumers rather than citizens and gay culture has been packaged as a commodity and sold back to us for profit. The culture we created now has a price.

Increasingly, we are expected to buy our LGBTI identity through the clothes we wear, our haircuts, the clubs we go to, the music we enjoy. The rampant commercialisation of the culture is one of the downsides of the freedom that we've won.

It has gone hand in hand with the demise of community spirit and solidarity. Poorer or disabled LGBTI people are often left behind in the rush for the glitz and glamour of what passes as modern, gay culture.

You organised a rally against the Pope’s visit to Britain last year. What happened?

Twenty thousand people attended. This was by far the most exuberant, exhilarating protest in England for more than a decade, if not longer.

The atmosphere was so joyful, witty and imaginative. It brought together gays and straights, humanists and the religious.

What is your message to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard?

Julia Gillard had the option to marry her partner Ian Mathieson, but she chose not to do so. That’s fine, it’s up to her.

But it is very shocking that she wants to deny that option to lesbian and gay couples who do want to marry.

Comments

Ronald Ryan was executed an innocent man. The facts surrounding the case and execution is shameful. http://ronaldryan.info.

You need Green Left, and we need you!

Green Left is funded by contributions from readers and supporters. Help us reach our funding target.

Make a One-off Donation or choose from one of our Monthly Donation options.

Become a supporter to get the digital edition for $5 per month or the print edition for $10 per month. One-time payment options are available.

You can also call 1800 634 206 to make a donation or to become a supporter. Thank you.