By Joel Meares
It's been an historic few weeks for LGBTQI rights in South Australia. First came the words, with Premier Jay Weatherill formally apologising in State Parliament to the LGBTQI community for laws that have discriminated against them. Then came the action, with the passage of several pieces of legislation that will strip some of that discrimination away.
Both moves earn Weatherill and the government of the first state to decriminalise homosexuality in Australia a big thumbs up and a full-throated "Yaaas!" from this writer. But they also demonstrate again the reactionary pattern of much of LGBTQI progress in this country, and abroad. Too often, something bad has to happen before leaders are motivated to do something good.
David and Marco Bulmer-Rizzi were on their honeymoon in Adelaide when David was killed in a fall.Credit: Facebook
A case in point: as part of a bill titled the Relationships Register (No.1), passed by the upper house last week and expected to soon be implemented, the state will now recognise overseas same-sex marriages. The move comes almost a year since the world learnt the nation-shaming story of British couple Marco and David Bulmer-Rizzi, the latter of whom died in January during their honeymoon in South Australia.
You will recall that following David's death, Marco was refused the status of next of kin, the right to make end-of-life decisions and told that his husband's death certificate would read "never married". When the story went viral, South Australia – along with Western Australia and the Northern Territory, which also do not recognise overseas same-sex marriages – got the shellacking it deserved in the press at home and abroad.
Leading the way: SA Premier Jay Weatherill's apology and progressive stance on LGBTQI rights should be applauded. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
At the time, Marco told Buzzfeed News that in the eyes of our government, "I'm nothing". Cut to September, and he was in Adelaide to see the bill introduced into parliament, and has said that seeing it pass now has made him the happiest he has been in 11 months.
LGBTQI history – and the history of civil rights movements more broadly – is littered with stories like Marco and David's, tragedies that capture the imagination of the public and demonstrate in raw human terms the impact that policy, or a lack of it, can have. Often the cases, and the players in them, become catalysts for campaigners pushing for reform and provide a new pressure on politicians to act. The narrative, the outrage, the human faces: it's a hard combination to dodge.
Most well known of these cases internationally is the murder of Wyoming man Matthew Shepard, who was brutally beaten and left to die in 1998 in what was widely reported to be a homophobic hate crime. After years of campaigning for an expansion of the federal hate crime law to include crimes targeting victims because of their gender and sexual orientation – much of it led by his parents – President Obama in 2009 signed into law an act named for Shepard and James Byrd jnr, a victim of race-based murder from Texas.
Questions about the true motive of Shepard's killers have been raised in the decades since his death, with some suggesting drugs were at the centre of the crime, rather than any gay panic. Regardless of that, the case showed what could happen to, and what had happened to, so many other kids who never made the news. Shepard as the victim of a horrific homophobic crime became the story – one that resonated with the public and motivated politicians.
President Barack Obama with the families of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd jnr, during a reception commemorating the enactment of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta
Similarly, and also stateside, it took the story of Ryan White for the government there to recognise a need for increased federal funding to society's most vulnerable AIDS victims – the uninsured, the poor and their families. White, a teenager who contracted AIDS in 1984 after a botched haemophilia treatment and was subsequently expelled from school, used the notoriety the case brought him to campaign for AIDS awareness. A law named for White was enacted four months after his death in 1990.
Back home, the story of David and Marco Bulmer-Rizzi showed that even a dull line of bureaucratese, when wreaking its real-world havoc, can precipitate tragedy.
A demonstrator places candles around a picture of Matthew Shepard in New York's Madison Square Park in 1998. Credit: Suzanne Plunkett
This is the bitter in the bittersweet developments coming from South Australia: that it takes something god-awful to happen before legislative action is taken; that there needed to be a David and a Marco for progress to be made.
It represents a lack of imagination on the part of lawmakers, an inability to look at the laws they have made and are making and follow them to their logical conclusions. Some of the most senior legislators in this country can dream up thousands of ways that a psychologically traumatised, malnourished refugee might ruin your life and society, but ask them what kind of impact not recognising the union of two legally married visitors might have – what could happen as a result of that law – and they're stumped.
Until they're shown.
South Australia's new laws should be celebrated, and Premier Weatherill's apology and progressive stance on LGBTQI rights, and other issues, applauded. Again: "Yaaas Jay!". I just hope that one day we can celebrate these victories as proactive, rather than reactive moves; that we won't need to hear Marco and David's tragic story because we will have had the foresight to ensure it never got told.
It would be nice to sometimes say thank you before our leaders have to say sorry.
Joel Meares is a Fairfax Media columnist.