The Tasmanian government has formally apologised to the LGBTQI community for the many years during which homosexuality was criminalised in the state.
Tassie was the last part of Australia to decriminalise consensual homosexual sex, in 1997. It’s wild to think that if you’re over 20 years old, you’ve lived in an Australia where people were still considered criminals due to their sexual orientation.
Acting Attorney General Matthew Groom apologised unreservedly for the pain the gay community had to endure during the years before the laws were repealed:
“We are sorry. We hope those affected will accept our acknowledgement that those laws were wrong.”
Premier Will Hodgman also said that the Government apologised “to those directly affected in this way, to their family and loved ones.“
In 2015, it was decided that the records of anyone convicted under the now-repealed laws that criminalised “consensual sexual intercourse between males”, “indecent practices between males” and “sexual intercourse against the order of nature” (wtf) will be wiped, meaning that they’ll no longer have their lives affected by a criminal record. This has yet to actually take place, however.
According to Rodney Croome, a gay activist who was arrested under the discriminatory laws in 1997, Premier Hodgman is the first Liberal politician to offer an apology to the LGBTQI community.
3pm Thurs, Will Hodgman, will be 1st Liberal leader to offer apology for anti-gay criminal laws. All welcome to Tas Parl for historic event pic.twitter.com/xxL5O8UtSq
— Rodney Croome (@RodneyCroome) April 12, 2017
It’s about time.
Source: ABC.
Image: Simon McGill / Getty.
