50 YEARS OF VISIBILITY

September 2020 marks 50 years since the formation of Campaign Against Moral Persecution Incorporated (or CAMP Inc), a trailblazing organisation in Australia, dedicated to removing the stigma still attached to homosexuality and to bringing about equal treatment before the law and in society.

Pride History Group thanks our former President and archivist, Robert French, for sharing this account below of the meaning behind this historic anniversary.

Until September 1970, there was no publicly self-identified lesbian or gay man in Australia. Yet today, with lesbians and gay men so visible in our society, it is sometimes difficult to conceive of a time when gay male sexual behaviour was illegal throughout the country, with people being gaoled as a result; when anti-discrimination legislation was an unheard-of notion; when doctors could unquestioningly carry out aversion therapy, or other medical experiments on homosexuals with court approval; and when no publicly recognised gay or lesbian community existed in which one could live openly and find support.

How then did all this come about?

Coming Out, Ready or Not

THE EARLY YEARS

The 1960s as the decade of change in Australia, began with the (almost wholesome) concept of 'the teenager' and ended with 'the counter-culture'. The concept of 'liberation', of physical and intellectual freedom and pride in one's self, which came from the Women's Liberation Movement, the black Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, can generally be said to have politicised the generation of 'the Sixties'. To the homosexual people of this generation who absorbed these ideas, the concept of gay liberation was embraced as an idea whose time had come.

From 1953 onwards, homosexuality began to be openly discussed in the Australian media and the New South Wales Parliament had even set up its own inquiry into the causes and cures of homosexuality, which never reported.

In Australia in the 1960s, none of this led to the rise of a body such as the Homosexual Law Reform Society in England. Similarly, the homophile organisations which existed in the large cities of the United States from the early Fifties - the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis - were unknown in Australia. What did exist was a hidden network of pubs and bars and, from the late 1960s, social groups such as the Knights of Chameleons, The Polynesians and The Boomerangs in Sydney. But these were largely unknown outside the closeted 'camp' society as the homosexual sub-culture referred to itself.

One piece, even with its evident self-oppression and the aping of heterosexual life, gives us a clue as to life within the sub-culture. It is a description by journalist John Edwards of a visit to a camp nightclub:

"Dearly Beloved Brethren," calls the compere, and then he explodes into lilting laughter and can't continue. "Dearly beloved brethren ...” he explodes again. "Anyhow," he says when he recovers, "Do you Cahill take Tim to be your dearly beloved ... er ... whatever?"
Cahill gives hushed assent, and the compere adds insinuatingly, "And now who’s going to be butch?" Screams of laughter. Encouraged, the compere swings into his routine ... "I won't ask you to be faithful; I know what Camp marriages are like . . .Now, Tim, you may kiss Cahill ... Now I want to kiss both of you".
Tim from Panania and Cahill from Cronulla rush back into the surrounding shadows. As they pass our table someone says, "Congratulations. Tim, I thought you were lovely." Tim squeals, "Oh dear, I was that scared I was trembling."

Marriages are an established ritual in the Camp community, and many are solemnised in camp night-clubs like this one. Sydney has two big camp cabarets, one in the city itself and one in Darlinghurst, which are vibrant on Friday and Saturday nights with hundreds of camps celebrating homosexuality in a society socially and legally hostile to it; they are enchanted caverns for a humdrum group of camp men and women scared by the leering intolerance of weekday society.

A Homosexual Law Reform Society of the Australian Capital Territory was set up in Canberra for some months in 1969 but, while homosexual people were members, the spokespeople were heterosexual. Similarly, the Australian Lesbian Movement, which was established in early 1970 as a chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, was valuable but closed support group for lesbians in Melbourne with a non-lesbian woman as its spokesperson.

John Ware, one of the founders of CAMP Inc

THE FORMATION OF CAMP INC

It was, therefore, something of a shock to most Australians to read in The Australian of 10 September 1970 of the formation of an organisation, Campaign Against Moral Persecution Incorporated (or CAMP Inc), dedicated to removing the stigma which society still attached to homosexuality (The name was deliberately chosen to give an Australian flavour to the organisation, 'camp' was a word of self-description within the homosexual community, 'gay' was not). Even more surprising was the openness of CAMP Inc's founders, John Ware and Christabel Poll, in agreeing to be interviewed and photographed for a feature article, again in The Australian, on 19 September 1970. In John Ware's own words, "the media went mad".

John and Chris had begun in Australia a movement that is still with us. Not that John and Chris foresaw these consequences. Indeed their own aims were quite modest. John, particularly, had come out of academic psychiatry where, as a student, he had had difficulties reconciling the established medical view of homosexuality as an illness with the reality of his own life. (He was happily settled with a lover, as was Christabel). They both looked to the formation of a small group which would be knowledgable about current thinking on homosexuality and be able to respond publicly, putting forward a gay viewpoint.

The final decision to found this 'society' followed the reporting in the Australian media of the formation of gay liberation groups in the Untied States following the Stonewall riots of 27 – 29 June 1969, and especially, the reporting of the first anniversary Stonewall/Gay Pride marches which had taken place across America in 1970.

Image: State Library of NSW. The Library holds a rare collection of letters, articles and papers documenting the CAMP Inc’s history.

The announcement of the formation of CAMP Inc also brought an unexpected response. It was the extraordinary amount of correspondence the group began to receive, which gave the founders some inkling that what they had started might be a little bigger than they had imagined. They sifted through the letters, selected those whose writers seemed at ease with their homosexuality and supported the aims of the society and called a preliminary meeting for 17 November 1970 at Christabel's flat in the Delmont apartment block at Milson's Point, North Sydney. From here the decision was taken to go ahead with a public meeting.

THE FIRST MEETING AND GROWTH OF CAMP INC NATIONALLY

So, on 6 February 1971, the first public gathering of homosexual men and lesbians took place in a small church hall in Balmain, then the heart of Sydney's counter-culture. Chris and John were confirmed, more by default than anything else, as convenors and spokespeople and CAMP Inc was properly launched.

By the end of February, other branches of CAMP had formed in Brisbane and in Melbourne (where it was known as Society 5) as well as on the campus of the University of Sydney. By the end of the year, branches had been established in all capital cities and on most campuses. CAMP Inc became known as CAMP NSW.

Each of the organisations was like an umbrella group. Most activity was carried out in the various subgroups concerned with such things as law reform, married gays, religion, and social activities. Eventually counselling was also added to the list of activities. By the end of 1971, each organisation began to be structured as well. Positions such a secretary and treasurer were agreed on as the organisations became more conventional in their operation (something which John in Sydney also found alien and from which he was glad to step aside).

Each of the organisations was very much quietly reformist, rather than revolutionary. Quite early on in Sydney, John Ware had stated that it would be years before we saw the first homosexual demonstration in Australia. But in that he was wrong. On 8 October 1971, some 70 people demonstrated outside the Sydney headquarters of the Liberal Party in support of the pre-selection of Tom Hughes, then Federal Attorney-General. He was facing a right-wing challenge from well known homophobe, Jim Cameron, following comments Hughes had made in favour of homosexual law reform. The demonstration was bright and cheerful and marked an important milestone in the history of gay liberation. CAMP Ink proclaimed, "October was the month when we came of age, politically."

DIFFERENT APPROACHES

Some members of CAMP NSW disagreed. They had become dissatisfied with the "reformist" approach of the organisation and, in July 1971, formed themselves into a gay liberation cell within CAMP. Already the more radical politics and ideas of the Gay Liberation Front in the United States had begun to come to Australia.

An uneasy relationship began to grow up between this cell and CAMP NSW. Its outspoken radicalism and counter-cultural outlook were alienating to the general membership of CAMP. This was so much the case that at a Sexual Liberation forum at Sydney University in January 1972 (at which Germaine Greer and Dennis Altman were among the speakers), Sydney Gay Liberation (SGL) declared itself a separate organisation. Thus began the political diversity of the gay movement in Australia.

THE EMERGENCE OF GAY LIBERATION IN AUSTRALIA

By March 1972, a Gay Liberation Front had been formed in Melbourne and gay liberation groups were established (or replaced Campus Camp) at the University of Sydney, the University of NSW, the Australian National University in Canberra, at Melbourne University and later in Perth and Adelaide, where the Gay Activists Alliance formed in 1973.

The style of meeting of these groups was unstructured, indeed chaotic. There were endless discussion, consciousness raising sessions, etc. What was achieved was probably more personal than political. In true counter-culture style, there was contempt for the established political system. Political activity centred on the demonstration and on "Zaps." These were activities designed to confront society, and could range from a man appearing in make-up in a public place to street theatre or even the disruption of lectures by aversion therapists (not unlike the activities of ACT-UP today).

The first major demonstration organised by SGL, in July 1972, was outside the ABC offices in Sydney following the management ban on an item on gay liberation going to air on a current affairs programme. It was notable also for the arrest of David McDiarmid, the first arrest at a gay political demonstration in Australia. Other demonstrations occurred in capitals such as Brisbane and Perth in September. But again it was in Sydney that the real confrontation with police occurred. Seventeen people were arrested at a march in Martin Place. It was a foretaste of similar confrontations to come, the most spectacular of which was to occur at the first Gay Mardi Gras in 1978.

Relations between CAMP and Gay Liberation remained strained for the next couple of years. On occasions there was co-operation, such as at the demonstrations outside the Mosman Anglican Church, on Sydney's North shore, following the sacking of the church secretary, Peter Bonsall-Boone, after he appeared openly with his lover on the ABC-TV programme Chequerboard. At other times there was hostility, such as when SGL refused to support the candidature of David Widdup against Prime Minister Billy MacMahon at the December 1972 election (because it smacked of bourgeois politics). David campaigned on the slogan, "I've got my eye on Billy's seat"!!

WOMEN IN THE MOVEMENT

On one matter the organisations shared a problem – the way men related to women in the movement. Women had been equal and enthusiastic partners in the early workings of both CAMP and Gay Liberation. By early 1973, however, many women were having increasing difficulty coping with the sexist attitudes of many gay men. At the same time, lesbians were attempting to work out their place in a feminist movement also sometimes hostile to them. The upshot was that many turned their energies and involvement to feminist or lesbian separatist organisations or simply drifted away from a gay movement which they felt held little for them. This trend was only reversed in the late 1980s with the beginnings of 'coalition politics'.

THE NEXT CHAPTER

If any event could be said to mark the end of this first phase of gay liberation (especially in Sydney) it was the Gay Pride Week celebrations held in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney in September 1973. It was almost as if the energy expended in organising the week left little for anything else. This is particularly true of SGL, which folded soon afterwards. People drifted on or into more specialised activities in trades unions, the Australian Union of Students or publishing, founding in 1974, GLP: Gay Liberation Press.

The various CAMP groups had also changed by 1974. Some women drifted away. Other people became involved in their own specialist groups. The changes were also different from state to state. In NSW, for example, the counselling side of the organisation came to dominate (and the name of the organisation was later changed to the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service, a name it retains) while in WA, CAMP remained essentially a political group until it disbanded in the late 1980s.

The early years of gay liberation in Australia were enthusiast, energetic and spectacular, at least for the participants and, one suspects, a bewildering spectacle for the population and the media at large.

By 1974, understandably, practical achievements were few – limited law reform had been enacted in South Australia and, in October 1973, the Federal Parliament had passed a motion in favour of homosexual law reform, but this was more symbolic than practical. At least one public group, which acted as a focus for activity, had been established in the larger cities as had counselling services. But these groups were small and they failed to attract the larger membership from the broader gay community centred on the bar culture. Indeed, in the case of SGL in particular, there was open, and possibly elitist, contempt for "bar queens".

THE LEGACY

Yet, with the formation of CAMP Inc in 1970, gay liberation in its broadest sense had been permanently placed on the social agenda not to be removed. Coming out became not only a personal statement but a political one as well. And the commitment which the activities of those years engendered in many of the participants ensured their involvement, often in their own small way, in the life of the gay and lesbian communities even to today.

Cover photo: Courtesy of William Brougham

SPECIAL EDITION: CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF VISIBILITY