On Thursday morning, it appeared that widespread homophobia in the Australian community had become a thing of the past. AFL legend Jason Akermanis failed to gain traction when he argued that it would be in everybody's best interests for gay footballers to remain in the closet.
He was testing the water to see if it is still possible to uphold the old cultural taboo that shamed gay men and women. It wasn't, and Akermanis was ridiculed. It seemed decades of work to affirm the human rights of gay men and women had borne fruit.
But on Thursday evening, homophobia resurfaced as an ugly force to be reckoned with. NSW Transport Minister David Campbell resigned from the ministry when he learned that Channel 7 was about to show pictures of his visit to a gay and bisexual men's 'sex club' earlier in the week. It needs to be asked why this was considered a more salient reason for him to resign than his oversight of the bungled CBD Metro project, which cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and delayed a solution to Sydney's transport bottleneck.
If homophobia no longer existed, the media would have treated the Campbell story as just another incidence of marital infidelity. This should be considered to be of doubtful news value, given the regrettable reality that at least half of Australian marriages are affected by infidelity at some stage.
On Friday morning, it was claimed by Channel 7 news director Peter Meakin on ABC Local Radio that Campbell had presented himself as a 'family man', and that his hypocrisy was consequently 'in the public interest'. But pressure for politicians to depict themselves as 'family-friendly' is itself a product of homophobia.
The story's distorted insight into what goes on inside gay men's sex clubs fed a prurient interest, not the public interest. It is worth reflecting that, like legalised brothels, such clubs may provide some public benefit. The taboo against homosexuality ensures much sexual activity between men is pushed underground, into dangerous and illegal settings like public toilets and parks. The clubs offer a legal and comparatively safe place for gay and bisexual men to meet in a context in which there is promotion of safe sex and even personal responsibility. The code of practice at the venue Campbell visited stipulates that patrons and staff must be 'treated with respect'.
At a media conference on Friday morning, NSW Premier Kristina