Gay Liberation

Abstract

In February 1973, I set out to find Gay Liberation - not the philosophy, which was vaguely coalescing inside my head, the organisation. I'd heard about Gay Liberation because of its recent demonstrations and the resulting hullabaloo in the press. It was a demonstrable part of the light of change beginning to shine across Australia since the election of Gough Whitlam just two months before in December 1972. Gay Liberation had broken away from the more conservative CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution), which focused on law reform, to advocate more radical public activism. CAMP itself was founded only in 1970. Gay Liberation as a movement was born in New York out of the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village in 1969. These incidents were the first time homosexuals fought back against police harassment and discrimination. As a result, Gay Liberation espoused a radical philosophy more in line with the spirit of the times. This didn't make it more acceptable, just more visible. The people in CAMP understood the need to work behind the scenes as well in order to effect meaningful change. This was something I would not appreciate for many years, but I was young and silly, and momentous and meaningful change seemed realisable in that brittle, bright light of the first year of Whitlam.