Lost Goldfish: Reward Offered

As homosexuality was still illegal in South Australia at that time, the banks of the Torrens River, or “Number 1 beat” as it was then known, was a popular place for homosexuals to meet. Around 11.00 p.m. on 10 May 1972, George Duncan and Roger James were both thrown into the river and Duncan, a frail man with one lung, drowned. James suffered a broken ankle and after crawling to the road, was rescued by a passing driver, Bevan Spencer von Einem, who then took him to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. By the time a television crew arrived, Duncan’s body had already been pulled from the river by police. The body was returned to the river to allow the crew to film its recovery.

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“On 30 July 1985 former Vice Squad officer Mick O’Shea told The Advertiser newspaper that the group involved were Vice Squad officers and that there was a cover-up to protect them. On 5 February 1986 three former Vice Squad officers, Brian Hudson, Francis Cawley and Michael Clayton were charged with the manslaughter of Dr. Duncan.

Cawley and Clayton eventually went to trial in 1988 with both being acquitted of the charges on 30 September after refusing to testify. During the trial, O’Shea made specific allegations that it was a common practice for Vice Squad officers to throw homosexuals into the river, that certain members assaulted homosexuals and that on one occasion they had chased an individual while firing shots. A further allegation was later raised that there had been an attempt to influence a juror to find the two officers charged not guilty. A police task force was set up, reporting to Parliament in 1990 that there was insufficient evidence to charge any person with the murder.

Repeated calls for a Royal Commission have been ignored.”

Source: Wikipedia

Dr George Duncan’s murder precipitated massive legal reform in SA, making it the first state to fully decriminalise homosexuality.

On Tuesday, it will be 39 years since Duncan was callously left for dead, but how much has really changed? We supposedly find it unacceptable to discriminate against homosexuals through language or actions, and I think this is supported by a general kind of acceptance of gay people (albeit with a ‘live and let live’ kind of approach) .

But we legally insist that they be denied the same rights as heterosexuals, because this is apparently the basis for traditional Australian values. In Letters to the Editor and on talkback radio, we grant them the very gracious dispensation of our tolerance, but question their ability to adequately raise children or experience monogamous love in the fashion of ‘normal’ people. We talk about being okay with them ‘as long as they don’t do it in front of us’. And we tokenise them in pop culture because heaven forbid our tolerance be forced to accept them en masse.

Dr George Duncan was murdered 39 years ago. Today, children are committing suicide because they’re scared of what their burgeoning sexuality means. It is fashionable for hot girls to flaunt a Sapphic performance, but ‘disgusting’ and dare I say it ‘suspicious’ for men to do the same. You can’t say fag anymore, but apparently it’s alright to call naff things ‘gay’.

We were given the chance to leap across the plains, and yet we chose to shuffle because we thought it was enough to simply move.

(via clementineford)