Michael Kirby: The rainbow in Asia and fight for gay rights in our region

This is an edited version of a speech delivered by Michael Kirby at the Sydney Institute on December 14

On November 15, 2017, I received the welcome wake-up call at my hotel in Bangkok. It was my partner of 48 years, Johan, phoning to tell me of the outcome of the “postal survey”, just announced, in favour of an Australian law on same-sex marriage.

The vote (61.6% yes; 38.4% no) confirmed countless opinion polls. So, it was not really surprising. Such polling is pretty accurate now and could have been conducted for a fraction of the costs of the postal vote.

However, the flawed process demanded by the government had a silver lining. It propelled the federal parliament to do what 25 other countries had achieved, many of them long ago: to enact marriage for people who happened to be gay.

The legislation was finally passed on December 7, 2017, by overwhelming votes of the House of Representatives and the Senate. It had taken an awful long time.

I was in Bangkok for a conference on a rather more pressing and urgent, but connected, subject.

The meeting had been convened by the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM). It was celebrating its tenth anniversary. It invited me to reflect on the struggles faced in Asia and the Pacific Islands to overcome violence and discrimination against the LGBTIQ minority: gays and trans people in the most populous countries on earth.

As I reflected on the arguments that had just been addressed in Australia, to oppose or delay gay marriages, I had plenty of time to consider the even more heroic struggles of the mostly young, multi-racial, multi-religious participants who were surrounding me.

Their struggles involved, literally, matters of life and death. Not all the news from their region was uplifting and encouraging. I was touched that they interrupted their program and asked me to tell the story about how marriage for gay and trans people in Australia was achieved. They hoped to draw from that story a message of encouragement for themselves.

Of course, I had to warn the participants of the peculiarities of the Australian scene and the need for caution in translating our delayed achievement of marriage rights in Australia to apply in the much more hostile environment of Asia.