Australian state finally apologizes for anti-gay law

Chris Minns, the premier of the state of New South Wales in Australia, apologized yesterday for laws that criminalized homosexuality. “This house, on behalf of the people of New South Wales, apologizes unreservedly to those who are convicted under discriminatory laws that criminalize homosexual acts,” Minns said.

In New South Wales, homosexuality was a crime until 1984. New South Wales is the most populous Australian state and also the last one to apologize for legislation that made gay sex a crime. According to the Associated Press, New South Wales “recorded dozens of ‘gay hate’ deaths in the 1980s, in part because of hostility and fear stemming from the AIDS epidemic.”

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David Patricia Abello stood outside in the rain while the apology took place. Abello is a 78er, a small group of gay rights activists that marched in the original Sydney Mardi Gras, an evening street protest for LGBTQ+ rights, where many arrests took place. He said that he was not “protesting anything, I’m just telling the story. I think when you’re a historian and engaged in the history of the oppressed, you have to be here.”

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In an interview with The Guardian, Abello said apologies are good “for those of us who need them, who want them, who are moved by them, for whom they make a difference, then I’m all in favor of making real apologies that are not political and are not taking advantage of the politics of the moment.”

“I, like many people, was impacted by anti-gay laws in the past. I remember a world where people lived in fear of being known,” Abello said.

“People lived their lives quietly; if you got caught up in the police, it was a serious matter, particularly if you were in a compromising position.”

“If there’s one thing I could say to the people in the house inside, it’s that we’re individuals. We respond differently to different challenges,” Abello continued, “some of us have been very damaged by the past, some of us have recovered ourselves from the past…if people want to make an apology, most of the people who are going to receive that apology we speak on behalf of, because they are gone.”

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