Fifty-three years ago, on this day, July 11th, 1972,
At one peaceful protest, outside the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) headquarters on 11 July 1972, against the refusal by ABC management to show a segment on Gay Liberation (that featured Dennis Altman) on This Day Tonight, McDiarmid was arrested, the first such arrest at a gay rights protest in Australia.[6]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 327ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the Black Civil Rights struggle of the 1950s onwards had acted as an “initiator” movement with spin-offs for second wave feminism, Puerto Rican rights, “ecology” and … gay rights.
Also, homosexuality was still criminalised, with all the attendant fear, opportunities for police brutality, extortion, shakedowns, blackmail etc.
The specific context was that brave men and women decided they weren’t going to live like that any more, under those conditions.
What I think we can learn from this is that outfits like the ABC are not the friend of progressive organisations and ideas. They have to be pushed (hard) even to be relatively “neutral”. That’s not to say there aren’t brave and principled journos working within them, producing solid work.
What happened next – South Australia led the way in decriminalisation (it took the death of a nice middle-class man at the hands of the police – RIP George Duncan). Other states followed.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
July 11, 1989 – Australia says “sure, we’ll take #climate refugees.” Yeah, nah.