In this May edition of the First Mardi Gras Inc. Newsletter, we have:
- Ken Davis on Vale Fabian LoSchiavo
- Meredith Knight on Vale Linda Bowman
- Karl Zlotkowski on 78ers Salute Union Pride
- Diane Minnis on Trans Day of Visibility Demo
- Pete De Waal on Phone-A-Friend 50th Anniversary
- Greg Reading on Pride (R)Evolution Exhibition
- Diane Minnis on Liberate! Exhibition
- Robert French on 40 Years On – 'Scandalous Conduct' Party after Club 80 Raid 2
- Photo from May 78ers Lunch
- How to buy Badges and Books
- Calendar of Events.
The next 78ers Lunch is on at 12pm, Sunday 4 June 2023, Terminus Hotel, Pyrmont, downstairs room, RSVP: info@78ers.org.au and the next First Mardi Gras Inc. General Meeting at 4pm, Saturday 17 June 2023.
Diane Minnis
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Events to mark the 45th Anniversary of the first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
City of Sydney Liberate! Exhibition Talk – 1-3pm, Saturday 24 June 2023, Customs House, Circular Quay, FREE: https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Celebrating our Sapphire Anniversary – 6.30pm Saturday 24 June 2023, Carriageworks, SGLMG members only, respond to the ballot invitation sent to members in early May. If you don’t get a ticket, contact: info@78ers.org.au
First Mardi Gras Inc. 78ers 45th Anniversary Drinks – 3pm, Sunday 25 June 2023, Kinselas, FREE RSVP: info@78ers.org.au
First Mardi Gras Inc. Book Launch: Voices from 1978 – 6pm, Tuesday 27 June 2023, State Library, FREE, Booking essential:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/voices-from-1978-book-launch-tickets-638942884367
State Library Pride (R)Evolution Exhibition – runs until Sunday 9 July 2023
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Malabar and Salina, the Eora and Dharawal lands, and the world are much less interesting places after the unexpected death of Fabian LoSchiavo on 11 May at his home by the sea. Fabian, and his various Christian personas, through his multiple contributions to queer culture and so many communities, became a very widely loved national treasure.
Fabian grew up in Eastwood, in a family of Irish and southern Italian heritage, near the Catholic church of St Anthony, and the Vincentian fathers and the Daughters of Charity at Marsfield. Fabian went to Catholic schools in Eastwood and Bathurst. He had a vocation, and spent a year with the Vincentians in Campbelltown after leaving school, then another two in the Vincentian novitiate in Perth. Then he wanted to join an Order of Canons Regular, the Premonstratensians, and went to seminary in St Norbert’s Abbey in Green Bay Wisconsin. In addition to theology, Fabian studied Latin, classical Greek, Hebrew, Italian and French.
Facing contradictions about his sexuality, and horrified by post Second Vatican Council modernisations in the abbey, he left and looked for alternatives in the USA, coming back to Australia to live with his sister Victoria and Michael Kheighery in Newtown in 1972. He went into Caritas in Darlinghurst for mental health interventions, and went to Dr Neil McConaghy for aversion therapy, which failed to cure his homosexuality. Fabian went to study at UNSW, focussing on archives, and started to get involved in gay groups in 1973. He remained religious, and joined the Anglican church – not the mainstream ultra-protestant Sydney Diocese, but a progressive congregation in the Anglo-Catholic tradition in Stanmore.
Fabian worked casually in gay bars in Kings Cross, and put personal ads in the then-radical and queer-friendly Nation Review. His advert saying “quaerite et invenietis” – “seek and ye shall find” attracted interest from gay men who shared his fascination with traditional religious vestments.
After his graduation from UNSW, Fabian worked for many decades with the NSW State Archives, until his retirement in 2012, when they relocated from the Rocks to Kingswood. Fabian was active in his union, PSA, in family history, and performed satirically as an archivist for state government celebrations.
In the mid-seventies, Fabian was live-in caretaker at the Inner City Education Centre in Stanmore, a radical professional development centre associated with the NSW Teachers’ Federation; he later moved to an apartment nearby in Stanmore. He had become involved in St Luke’s Enmore, and he stayed active in that parish until his death.
Fabian was extremely socially and politically conservative in the early 1970s, but became involved in gay community and activism. In 1978 he was sewing flags and banners for protests and conferences, and he came to the morning march on 24 June 1978 with a sign saying “Gay, Free and C of E”. He became active in Gay Solidarity Group. Not long after, with Prue Borthwick and others, Fabian established AngGays, the fourth lesbian and gay religious group in Sydney (after Acceptance, MCC and Chutzpah).
After the first Mardi Gras in 1978, lesbian, gay and trans activism accelerated. Fabian not only had a complex vocation as a monk/nun, but was also a creative and satirical performer. In 1981 Fabian was a founder of the Gay Liberation Quire and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (as Sr Mary Volupta, later as Mother Inferior, or Mother Abyss) and later was a vocalist with the country gospel band, Eve and the Forbidden Fruits. Fabian’s public religious personas multiplied. Mother had avatars including: Monsignor Porcamadonna, the Papal Nuncio to Sydney gay and lesbian community, playing “Volare” on accordion, the Pentecostal Rev Oral Riches (or Richards, in honour of American Oral Roberts, the main proponent of the Prosperity Gospel), Greek Orthodox Patriarch Sfichtokolos, Dean Sheraton Hilton, (a Sydney Anglican Diocese Festival of Light and real estate maven) and Father Terence Patrick Francis Zavier O’Flynn, a one armed Catholic priest from Nyngan, fond of gambling and alcohol).
All were anarchic satirical cultural weapons in the struggle against heterosexism, hypocrisy, sexism, racism, war, and capitalism. Fabian was tireless in performing, not just for gay men and lesbians, but also for peace, international solidarity, left and union events, for sex workers, drug users and archivists.
Mother Inferior led many notorious politico-cultural interventions by the Sisters. He would come to Preterm and other abortion clinics to chat up (and scare away) the Catholic brothers trying to stop women accessing services. Gay Solidarity and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence organised a demonstration of 400 at Ryde Civic Centre outside a prayer rally by American Moral Majority leader, Jerry Falwell, aborting his plans to expand to Australia. Monsignor Porcamadonna and Mother officiated at exorcisms and raffles and dog shows at the three week Gay Rights Embassy outside premier Neville Wran’s home in Woollahra in 1983. Outside the election launch of Jim Cameron, an upper house candidate for Fred Nile’s Call to Australia in 1984, Rev Oral Riches led a Pentecostal Revival meeting at Willoughby, with the gift or tongues, and three evangelical Blood Hymns.
On 4 April 1984, Sr Mary Third Secret of Fatima, and Cardinal Cozijn saved relics of different “species” from the demolished toilet, or “Wedding Chapel” in Green Park. Mother and the Sisters elevated the stainless steel urinal to an altar of worship in the Mardi Gras parade, and began a series of Reliquary exhibitions, in the Bookshop Darlinghurst and in the National Homosexual Conferences. A ferry ride to Manly inspired the Sisters to begin “Animal Gaol” walks at Taronga, and in 1990, Mother Inferior, with Cardinal Robert French, began history walks in inner Sydney. For Mardi Gras one year, Mother Inferior ran a tour of the Malabar sewage works, a “fire temple” visible across the water from Mother’s convent at Malabar. He wrote special hymns about treating sewage, without ever using any direct words. Fabian would often write and produce on an old typewriter, new witty lyrics to hymn songs, and would lead the congregation singing with his accordion, for example the ever popular versions of the Lourdes Hymn, “Ave Mardi Gras”.
Led by Mother Inferior, half a dozen gay male nuns narrowly escaped death outside the Sydney Film Festival in 1985. SPI was protesting the film by Jean-Luc Godard, “Hail Mary” for the blasphemous portrayal of the Blessed Virgin as a Swiss heterosexual petrol pump attendant. As nuns chanted “The Queen of Heaven Don’t Pump Gas!”, 4,000 Lebanese Phalangists arrived, violently threatening the nuns, the film festival and the arrival of Gough and Margaret Whitlam. The petition demanding that all censorship powers be handed over to SPI as the only reliable guardians of public morals went strangely unanswered.
Relations with police were not always warm. In 1986 during the visit of conservative Pope John Paul II, the Sisters turned out for several motorcades, the Pope sometimes assuming from afar they were Eastern Rite priests. Mother Inferior and Sister Mary, Mary Quite Contrary were arrested at Sydney University for the slogan: “Anti-Woman, Anti-Gay, Fascist Pope Go Away!”. On the evening in 1986 when Darlinghurst police were vacating the police station where the first Mardi Gras arrestees in June 1978 had been held, and sometimes beaten, the Sisters held a ceremony at the front door with a pig’s head on a silver platter, reminiscent of Salome and John the Baptist. This was not indicative of Fabian’s usual style.
In 1989 the Sisters carried a vast papier mache head of Fred Nile on a platter in the Mardi Gras parade, and later helped mobilise thousands to welcome Fred Nile’s “Cleansing March” on Oxford Street.
Written by Phil Stevenson, the anthem, “Thank You Lord for Gay Liberation” was transformed by the ecstatic preaching of Rev Oral, testifying to the “Four Square Gospel of Socialism, Feminism, Gay Liberation and Ethnic Pride”. Rev Oral with his hand in the air, like former PM Scott Morrison, would end the song with shouts of “I am Coming, Lord, I am Coming!”.
Mother Inferior pioneered the Sisters providing pastoral care within and beyond the lesbian and gay communities, with multifaith ceremonies for naming children, relationship and house blessings, and memorial services.
In 1983, at the start of the AIDS crisis in Sydney, Sr Third Secret brought a small safe sex publication from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in San Francisco, which was one of the first AIDS prevention materials distributed in Australia. Mother Inferior and the Sisters continued to play a role in safe sex education, for gay men, drug users and sex workers, though Mother used decent language, talking only of “relations” not sex, and “organs”, and “feeling comfortable with one another”, as he had been with Sr Missionary Position, Sr Boom Boom, Sr Vicious Power Hungry Bitch, Sr Florence Nightmare, Sr Freeda Peoples, Sr Kay Sera, and Sadie Sadie the Rabbi Lady, when Mother visited the San Francisco Mother House.
In 1991 at the tenth anniversary celebration of the foundation of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Order suffered a Schism, with Mother refusing go to the monthly collective decision-making nuncheons. One group thoroughly horrified Fabian, SPIRM (Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Reform Movement) implemented the Second Vatican Council reforms, and adopted vestigial veils, mission brown pleated skirts, beige blouses and cream cardigans, abjuring all natural fabrics. Another group, the Big Sisters of Universal Joy, wearing white Cistercian habits, were more pagan, and focussed on pastoral care in response to the AIDS crisis.
Fabian paraded in Mardi Gras almost every year, in various comedic guises, usually clerical, and contributed to a range of gay groups, such as GayWaves radio, and Inside Out prisoners support network with Kendall Lovett.
In 1985 “Encounters”, an ABC religion department TV program, featured Fabian’s life story, and the contradictions of being a homosexual Christian.
Fabian moved to Malabar after the death of his aunt in the mid-1980s and started to transform the rooms, garden, sheds, attic and catacombs into a somewhat unascetic multifaith chapel and library, with surrounding fishponds, fruit trees and shrines.
Fabian went through a process with the Catholic church to get restitution for the sexual abuse he faced while young, by priests.
Fabian visited his ancestral home in Salina, near Sicily, in the late 1980s, making friends in that community, and two decades ago began a legal case to ensure his part of the family could still access the houses in the harbour of Santa Marina. During several visits to Rome, apart from seeking out incorrupt relics of saints hidden in obscure parts of basilicas and churches, Fabian played accordion for socialist events, and became a member of the far-left Partito della Rifundazione Comunista. Fabian also enjoyed travel to Malaysia and Vietnam.
After retiring, engaged with his local community in Malabar, Fabian stayed active in deploying his religious personas for politics, satire, humour and pastoral duties. He always went to mass at his church, St Luke’s in Enmore, for many years teaching Sunday school. He began to teach ethics in primary schools, assisted in a klezmer band with Alex Kaufmann, and he kept sewing and riding his bike. He had a small boat to take onto the water in Long Bay. In recent years he had reversed his aversion to dogs, and became a very loving dog minder, dog companion and dog walker.
Through international Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence connections, Fabian made friends with a bishop of the Holy Celtic Church, based in Switzerland, and took ordination as a priest in Apostolic Succession (via the Old Catholic Church in Netherlands), as Rev Dom Fabian. So he achieved his two vocations, as an abbess, and as a priest.
Fabian was always close to his family, in recent years his sisters and brothers and their children.
His bravery, creativity, warm-heartedness and sense of humour will be long celebrated. His contributions to queer culture and liberation, and to global social justice, are immense. He has helped create and enliven our communities in Sydney and beyond. His gentle satirical presence and performances have played a vast role in winning queer dignity, acceptance, equality and freedom.
Ken Davis
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Co-Chair
William Bougham’s videos of Fabian: https://www.facebook.com/william.brougham/videos/273987291770710
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Linda was born in the USA in 1946 and migrated to Australia in 1973. She was an academic; a Russian historian in the Economic History Department at the University of Sydney. Also at the School of History at the Australian Defence Force Academy. Linda was a much loved member of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir.
Linda died peacefully from Alzheimer’s disease in April 2023. She is survived by her long-time partner, Dr Lyn Fong and their two adorable doggies.
The photo below of Linda and Lyn was taken at the 2022 Mardi Gras, 78ers contingent, which was Linda’s last as she was too ill to participate in 2023.
78er Meredith Knight
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Each year, one month after the close of the Mardi Gras season, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras hosts a community awards night to celebrate achievements and contributions to the festival events. Awards are distributed to individuals and groups involved in Fair Day, the Parade, and for Individual Excellence and Lifetime Achievement.
Each year there are awards for Volunteer of the Year, Best Costume, Best Individual or Small Group, Most Fabulous Parade Entry and this year, for the second time, an award for the parade entry that best connects with The Spirit of 1978. This award has been introduced by the SGLMG 78ers Committee to remind the Mardi Gras community of our movement’s origins in the politics of the 1970s.
This year’s awards were held at the UNSW Roundhouse (scene of past triumphs for some of us…), suitably disco’d for the occasion and crowded with the great and good of Mardi Gras (and a few others). Alongside the SGLMG board and staff there were mobs of volunteers and organisers from Parade groups and Fair Day stalls, all hoeing into the free food.
And then, as the awards were announced (like Oscars) I was called up to present the Spirit of 1978 Award on behalf of the SGLMG 78ers Committee. I reminded the crowd that the events of 24 June 1978 were part of an international Day of Solidarity in protest against moves to discriminate against gays in their work. In light of this, on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of 1978 the Committee had decided to award the Spirit of 1978 award to the parade group organised by Union Pride.
It’s also worth noting that 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the first union Pink Ban in 1973, called by the BLF at Macquarie University to protest the expulsion of Jeremy Fisher from his university college. Union Pride plan to commemorate this anniversary during this year’s Pride Month. The Spirit lives on.
Karl Zlotkowski
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Secretary
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On 2 April, Pride in Protest organised a Trans Day of Visibility rally and march in Newtown. Over two thousand people took part, many in response to recent aggressive Christian Lives Matter demonstrations in Newtown, Oxford Street and the city.
We thought it was important that 78ers show our solidarity, so we took the big solid 30th anniversary 78ers banner. It was certainly useful cover when the rain came pelting down during the speeches. Though we all were soaked as we marched up King Street.
Unions had a strong presence, with members of the United Workers Union, Australian Services Union, and National Tertiary Education Union in attendance. Dykes on Bikes made a powerful impact leading the march.
First Mardi Gras Inc. moved our first Sunday lunch to a brunch in Newtown and most 78ers attending came up to join the rally and some marched. Thanks to 78er Virginia Iliv for her video: 2023 Trans rally and march at Newtown NSW - YouTube.
Diane Minnis
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Co-Chair
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Peter de Waal wrote this on 13 April 2023, the day of the 50th anniversary celebration of Australia’s first telephone helpline for gay men and lesbians – Phone-A-Friend.
“Today is a remarkable and memorable day for me personally and the rainbow community.
“At 6pm today Australia’s first gender-specific telephone help line – Phone-A-Friend – was launched on so called black Friday 13 April 1973. And I am so proud and delighted that it was launched and begun in our – Bon and my – Balmain house’s front room. The same house where I still live but alas without Bon. Over the years its name changed to Twenty10/Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service and nationally QLife.
“Over its 50-year existence it has been a quiet achiever and remarkable emotional backbone of the rainbow community. It was there ready and waiting with a sympathetic non-judgemental ear. During many rainbow communal and individual crisis, to name just a few: 1980-90s devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic; Sydney’s gay-hate crime epochs; Post traumatic 1978 first Mardi Gras; Australia’s marriage equality campaign. The list is too long to mention here.
“The phone service saved many lives. And during the last half century it has supported, counselled, assisted, enriched, and empowered, our multi-faceted rainbow community, in many and varied ways.
“But it’s only been possible with the multitude of past, present, and hopefully future volunteers. Who generously give and work towards a common rainbow goal of equality, inclusion, belonging, rainbow love is love. And that only the best is good enough for each and every one of us.
“A press release was issued on behalf of CAMP – Campaign Against Moral Persecution, which is Australia’s 1970 foundation stone of today’s rainbow community. Phone-A-Friend is CAMP’s enduring entity of which I was a foundation member.
“Tonight, when I’ll be at a celebration to mark the phone service’s golden jubilee I’ll be the oh so proud with pride in my heart ‘birthday boy’ of the year.”
Peter de Waal
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Member
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Recently, I visited the Pride (R)Evolution exhibition at the State Library of NSW. The exhibition traverses a broad gamut of our LGBQTI+ history in Sydney, from the early days to the present.
I was pleased to see that Gaywaves got a guernsey, with an installation suggestive of someone listening to our program in their bedroom.
Our presence is no doubt thanks to the efforts of one of our most devoted listeners, Bill West. Bill meticulously recorded the show off air every week, recording 145 tapes between 1980 and 1990. When he died, these precious tapes, totalling 147 hours, were donated to the State Library of NSW.
On one occasion, when we decided to give our radio serial ‘Gays of Our Lives’ a second run, we discovered that we had lost one of the original tapes. Thanks to Bill, we were able to obtain a copy of the lost episode from him, so we were able to replay the serial.
Daniel Rogers, who put the installation together, writes: “I listened to the Gaywaves tapes like they were a radio program. I had them on in my car, in the kitchen, playing from another room. I felt like I was in a different time... the early tapes ring of a certain love, the unprofessionalism of the news reads, the familiarity between the hosts... thinking of listening to this program, alone, in my room, imagining a kind of queer life, I wanted to be there so badly.”
Disappointingly, the program excerpt playing on the day I attended, consisted of none of the highlights promised in the transcripts provided by the link, but instead a not particularly interesting reading of a few lines from a short story.
The exhibition runs until Sunday 9th July. Catch it before then.
Greg Reading
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Member
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It was great to pop in recently to the City of Sydney’s Liberate! Exhibition at Customs House, Circular Quay. The exhibition is curated by Jacqui North and continues until 2 July. Liberate! features the work of eight queer photographers, including C.Moore Hardy and 78er Sallie Colechin.
The photographs were on rotating display on six large screens – covering themes of Fighting For Our Lives, Party With Us!, Community Made + Queering Spaces, Transcend, First Nations and Protest. This makes for engaging presentations and you can sit or stand and watch each screen as the images scroll through. There are explanatory panels and quotes, including from Ken Davis and I in the Protest section, and these round out the stories told by the images.
However, there is a gap in the Protest section, with no photos of the first Mardi Gras. There is an obvious lead in with caption to Sallie’s photo of the morning march (shown above in the Protest section sign) which lists the women “holding the banner in what became known as the first Mardi Gas”. But this could also be interpreted as the morning march being the Mardi Gras – an all too common mistake made by the media.
Jacqui North is coordinating a panel discussion on Saturday 24 June at Customs House, focussing on the photography of history making moments across 45 years with four photographers including Sallie. This is FREE and will probably be from 1-3pm but check whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events. Get down and see the exhibition before it closes on 2 July!
Diane Minnis
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Co-Chair
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Having botched their first attempt the Vice Squad together with cops from Darlinghurst Police Station raided Club 80 for a second time on 26 February 1983. This time they came prepared with still and video cameras to document the raid and gather further 'evidence'. An additional 11 men were charged. The charges included an obscure 'common law' offence of 'Scandalous Conduct' (that on 11 February had also been added to those charged on the first raid).
The police raid had one positive, and ironic, effect – they now managed to unite a disparate community of bar queens, the leather crowd, activists and those who to this point had been indifferent. And again, the community responded quickly. A meeting called for Sunday 27 February was attended by over 500 people. The following motion was proposed:
"This meeting called on Neville Wran, National President of the ALP to state immediately his firm intention to repeal all anti-gay laws in NSW in the immediate future."
So far so good, then anger overcame rationality. The Chair of Sydney Mardi Gras, Brian McGahen, I think to garner some personal gain knowing he was to stand as an Independent against Labor for the Sydney City Council at the next election, had added the following, in relation to the forth coming Federal election:
"Should such an undertaking not be given by next Friday, we call upon all gay people in Australia not to vote for ALP candidates and instead for other candidates with pro-gay policies."
It passed, and was to totally wreck the momentum that we had built up in response to the raids. The media, instead of continuing the focus on police action, now changed the story to 'Gay Rights Lobby (GRL) calls on the community to vote against Labor at the Federal election’. Federal politics had nothing to do with what had been happening in NSW.
In addition, it meant calling for the defeat of Max Pearce, the first openly gay candidate to be endorsed by a political party in Australia, who was standing for Labor in the Federal electorate of Wentworth.
In an attempt to alter the narrative, I issued a press release stating GRL "was an impartial body set up to lobby for homosexual rights and it did not urge people to vote for or against any party" (SMH 1/3/1983).
While this was picked up by some media, we never regained the momentum. Brian tried to back-track by exempting Max Pearce from the ban, but it was all too late. I, and other activists, never quite forgave Brian for this mess. The anger generated in the room, however, did have one direct result. At the end of the meeting, it was decided to march on Darlinghurst Police Station.
So, on a balmy summer's afternoon, a mob of 300 angry queens moved from the Gay Centre in Surry Hills to Taylor Square. It was only when we reached Bourke Street that I spied a police car with the occupant radioing back to the Station the message that we were coming. Reaching Taylor Square, we just ignored the traffic lights and stopped the traffic as we marched across.
At the Station, there was pandemonium. Cops were running around hurriedly closing windows. The front door was firmly shut. It was the only time in all the years of activism that I witnessed the cops being wrong footed.
The rally was noisy. There were speeches by John Schwarkopf, the Secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Coalition, by Michael Glynn, the editor of the Sydney Star, and myself as GRL Co-Convenor. I held a letter for the Police Commissioner that we had hurriedly written. When the front door was partially opened and a Police Sargent came out, I moved forward.
"What's all this about?" he asked, as if he didn't know. Then he paused. I saw concern come across his face. "Whoa!" he said. I stopped and looked around to see that the whole crowd had moved forward with me. I quietly asked everyone to move back a bit, which they did. I then turned (and I confess somewhat smugly) said to the cop, "See that's how's it's down. With civility."
I then stated that our community was sick and tired of being harassed by the police, especially from that Station, and handed over the letter to the Commissioner. The crowd then broke up peacefully, though some quickly reassembled for a group photo for the Sydney Star.
Over coming days, there was a demonstration outside Parliament House where people chained themselves to the railings. Delegations visited Parliament House to lobby politicians. Wran, however undermined this lobbying process when he 'ruled out any further attempts to decriminalise homosexuality this year ..." (SMH 1 March 1983)
On 4 March, we held a rather rowdy ‘Scandalous Conduct' party at Club 80, to which we invited the police. They, of course, never came. There was music, and raffles. My former Co-Convenor at GRL, Barry Charles, won six cans of Crisco. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence held an exorcism of the building and Mother Inferior (Fabian LoSchiavo) blessed the crowd with amyl nitrate for holy water! Importantly, over $4,000 was raised, which became the seed funding for the Lambda Legal Defence Fund in support of the Club 80 detainees.
Then, on 2 April, the Vice-Squad, based on the evidence collected at the second raid, successfully had Justice Lusher declare Club 80 'a disorderly house' and it was closed down.
But that was not the end of police activity. There was another Club 80 premises established in Little Oxford Street, and this too was raided on 27 August and closed down. While the community responded with an impromptu march down and up Oxford Street, at which the police showed surprising restraint, it was to be two other actions that proved to be most important in furthering the cause – the establishment of the Gay Embassy outside the Premier's home, and the signing of Statutory Declarations by people and the confronting of the Vice Squad daring them to arrest us. These had a direct impact on the outcome of the homosexual law reform campaign in NSW.
Robert French
78er and First Mardi Gras Inc. Member
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There was a great roll up at the 78ers Lunch on the first Sunday in May at The Terminus Hotel, Pyrmont. We book the downstairs room off the courtyard each month and enjoy a relaxing meal together.
The next lunch will be on Sunday 4 June. RSVP: info@78ers.org.au
Photo: Diane Minnis. |
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78er badges and our new Always an Ally badges are $5 each and postage is $3.09 (total $8.09). Postage is still $3.09 for up to five badges. To order badges, email your name, postal address and the number of badges required to info@78ers.org.au. Then make your payment by funds transfer. Use your name as the deposit reference. You can also post a cheque to the PO Box.
Voices from 1978 The first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, is a 104 page, A5 book. You can get your copy for $15 plus $5 postage from Orders — First Mardi Gras (78ers.org.au) or buy it from The Bookshop Darlinghurst for $19.99. The Bookshop also does overseas orders, but best to email info@thebookshop.com.au for a postage quote. |
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Calendar of Events
- First Mardi Gras Inc. 78ers Lunch – 12pm, Sunday 4 June 2023, Terminus Hotel, Pyrmont, downstairs room, RSVP: info@78ers.org.au
- First Mardi Gras Inc. General Meeting – 4pm, Saturday 17 June 2023 by Zoom
- City of Sydney Liberate! Exhibition Talk – 1-3pm, Saturday 24 June 2023, Customs House, Circular Quay, FREE: https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events
- Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Celebrating our Sapphire Anniversary – 6.30pm Saturday 24 June 2023, Carriageworks, SGLMG members only invited
- First Mardi Gras Inc. 78ers 45th Anniversary Drinks – 3pm, Sunday 25 June 2023, Kinselas, FREE RSVP: info@78ers.org.au
- First Mardi Gras Inc. Book Launch: Voices from 1978 – 6pm, Tuesday 27 June 2023, State Library, FREE, Booking essential: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/voices-from-1978-book-launch-tickets-638942884367
- First Mardi Gras Inc. 78ers Lunch – 12pm, Sunday 2 July 2023, Terminus Hotel, Pyrmont, downstairs room, RSVP: info@78ers.org.au
- Broken Heel Festival, Broken Hill – 7-11 September 2023 Broken Heel Festival (bhfestival.com)
- Sapphire Coast Pride, Bega Valley, www.Facebook.com/groups/sapphirecoastpride.
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