Two men walk into Hobart police station, confess to a crime and begin High Court battles for justice, respect and marriage equality.
4 part documentary series Judgment: Cases that Changed Australia begins with the fight to repeal laws against Homosexuality in Australia.
In the early 1990s, Rodney Croome and Nick Toonen confessed to a crime punishable by 21 years in jail – consensual sex between two adult men.
Their actions were part of a long struggle for gay rights in Tasmania that saw mass arrests, and a declaration from the UN, but conservative forces in Tasmania refused to be told to change their laws.
It took a historic case in the High Court to finally repeal the last criminal laws against homosexuality in Australia.
Rodney Croome then went on to share with a new generation of LGBTQI activists fighting for the right to marry, how to use the High Court strategically to change the law. In a fight lasting more than a decade, they absorbed some tactical losses in the High Court that ultimately helped win the war.
The High Court ruled that the Commonwealth’s marriage power, written in 1901 when same-sex marriage was undreamt of, could in fact encompass such a law. The definitive recognition of that power by the Court, along with the overwhelming yes vote in the controversial national postal survey, led the National Parliament to finally pass legislation allowing same-sex couples to marry, a process that came at significant cost for some members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
In the end, it is a story about love, courage, the great Australian value of equality.
Produced by Wildbear Entertainment.
8:40pm Tuesday on ABC.