In 1989, a small town on the North-West Coast of Tasmania made headlines after the media dubbed it the “most homophobic town” in Australia.
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At the time, Tasmania was in the grips of a fierce debate about whether to decriminalise homosexual acts.
Anti-gay rallies sprang up across the state but the first, biggest and most infamous was held at the Ulverstone Civic Centre.
Three decades later, two women decided that was the place where they wanted to get married.
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WHEN TRISH MET SALLY
Trish Bock met the love of her life at a party in Burnie 18 years ago.
She had recently struggled to come out and was taken aback by the boldness and beauty of Sally Marks, who was proudly distributing flyers for a new LGBTI support services.
Trish used the oldest pick-up line in the book: “Do you want a drink”.
“She was kind of chasing me around with a glass of water,” Sally said.
“Because you asked for one!” Trish replied.
The women got chatting and talked until the early hours of the morning.
(Trish) said she was interested in my heart, my mind and my political sensibilities.
- Sally Marks
The women have been together ever since and now live at Penguin. They decided to get married last year but their proposal was somewhat unconventional.
Sally had long complained that they needed a new vacuum cleaner; Trish always said they’d get one as a wedding gift if the law ever allowed them get to married.
Her bluff was finally called when same-sex marriage was legalised in 2017.
“We can get a new vacuum cleaner now, we might as well get married,” Sally said.
THE WOUNDS OF THE PAST
Trish and Sally were married at the Ulverstone Civic Centre on October 6.
The guests included legendary LGBTI rights advocate Rodney Croome and his mother Beverley.
The pair were invited to the wedding to be part of a “healing ceremony” within a building that was once synonymous with hate.
“My message will be one of hope, it will encourage people to always stand up to prejudice, stand up for what’s right,” Croome said.
“Because if we do, then history will bend in the direction of justice.”
Croome was among the LGBTI rights advocates that travelled to Ulverstone to attend the anti-gay rally in 1989 and hold a candlelight vigil.
He’d just won a battle with the Hobart City Council over the right to have a gay and lesbian rights stall at Salamanca Markets.
But the war for equality was only beginning as the government flagged plans to decriminalise homosexuality.
“That was a bridge too far for many people and only a couple of months later we saw the start of anti-gay rallies in Tasmania,” Croome said.
“What we saw was hundreds of people gathering in a town hall, with speakers up on the stage demonising LGBTI people in the worst possible terms, stirring up hate and violence against us.
“And the crowds (were) just cheering them on and chanting, ‘Kill them! Kill them!’ It was absolutely awful.”
Trish was living at Westbury at the time of the rallies.
“It was scary to open the paper because there'd be all these letters to the editor ... really horrible letters,” she said.
“I was just coming out and I was terrified. I still thought I was going to be, you know, pelted to death or something.”
LEADERS OF DISSENT
The crowds at the rallies were often egged-on by local councillors and state politicians, such as Tasmanian MHR Chris Miles.
Croome said the advocates, however, were determined to make their voice heard despite the public backlash
“You either react to that by walking away and saying, ‘This is too hard.’ Or you have faith in your fellow human beings and you stay there and you say it doesn't matter what you say to me or what you throw at me or how often you spit at me, we're all people, we all deserve respect… we all belong here in Tasmania and you're not going to throw me out,” Croome said.
The Ulverstone rally was just one event in the long fight for equality in Tasmania.
It was a fight that went to the highest levels of government, to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and into the comedy routines of people like Andrew Denton.
Rodney said many people in the community were embarrassed by “how emotionally violent and angry these rallies were” and so reached out to the advocates.
“That’s where things began to turn around,” he said.
THE STORY OF CHANGE
Tasmania has since gone from the last state to decriminalise homosexuality in 1997 to the one with the second-highest ‘yes’ vote during the same-sex marriage campaign.
The story of how that change happened has been told in a new verbatim play opening in Hobart this month.
The Campaign was written by former gay newspaper journalist Campion Decent after he interviewed advocates including Croome, Christine Milne and Bob Brown.
“I was immediately fascinated by that idea of a community fighting for their rights and for change,” Campion said.
“And the fact that it was so peaceful in terms of grassroots activism.”
Campion said he wrote The Campaign to ensure the struggle for equality in Tasmania wasn’t forgotten.
He said everyone he interviewed mentioned the anti-gay rally at Ulverstone.
“It was really a moment I think in time in that whole campaign where they realised what they were up against and just how far they had to go,” Campion said.
ULVERSTONE THREE DECADES LATER
It’s hard to see any trace of Ulverstone’s homophobic history when you visit the town today, but Central Coast councillor Amanda Diprose hasn’t forgotten the past.
Last month, she proposed a suite of initiatives to foster equality and inclusion in the community, including by planting a memorial tree.
“I had to make sure that it was going to be a motion that was going to be about progress and not be about focusing on the past,” Cr Diprose says.
The Central Coast Council meeting was packed last month when the motion was passed.
“It was wonderful to have those people there... it’s great to think we could all be part of change and make our community a better one, Cr Diprose said.
Trish and Sally were among the people at the council meeting.
Trish said this action and Tasmania’s high ‘yes’ vote revealed how much things had changed.
“It shows how it’s a process, rather than an event, that people can and do slowly change their minds about things,” she said.
Croome said the fact that Trish and Sally could get married at the Ulverstone Civic Centre was emblematic of how far the town, Tasmania and Australia had come.
“And most of all it’s a vindication for me that what we did back then, going to have vigils outside of those anti-gay rallies and showing people that we weren't going away … worked,” Croome said.
“That we were right in deciding not to walk away from the hate but to confront it. As difficult as it was, it was the right thing to do and it worked. It created a better Tasmania.”