The following article was in the Gay In West Australia web pages, and was written by Gavin McGuren:
Twenty years ago on 10 March 1987, gay author Larry Kramer gave a speech in New York City that led two days later to the formation of ACT UP - the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. In his speech Kramer denounced what he saw as the political impotence of an existing organisation, Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), formed to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS and to rally support for those already living with the virus.
ACT UP quickly established itself as a direct action group, and on 24 March, 250 members descended on Wall Street to disrupt the business of the day in protest over exorbitant prices for the new antiviral drug AZT. ACT UP members occupied the stock exchange floor and managed to delay the famous opening bell. Seventeen people were arrested and ACT UP's campaign of civil disobedience took its first step to international notoriety.
The Perth branch of ACT UP was founded during the first 'Pride Month' in October 1990, and managed to attract considerable media attention while it was active. The group quickly became a thorn in the side of Carmen Lawrence's ALP Government as it repeatedly attacked the policies of Health Minister Keith Wilson, a recent convert to Catholicism and staunch opponent of condoms and any sex apart from that between a married man and his dutiful wife. One of the most memorable images of ACT UP Perth's campaigns was The West Australian's photo of Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Ian Walker and Ruth Marshall, protesting outside the Federal Health Minister's office and looking for all the world like the Blues Brothers in convent drag.
ACT UP branches began to fall away as the situation improved year by year for gay men with HIV. The groups contribution to those improvements have been hotly debated but I think it's safe to say that while those early pioneers made a few tactical errors along the way, they had plenty to be proud of as well.
ACT UP's founder is now 72-years-old and he's still angryand demanding to know why so many heterosexual Americans hate gays. The author of the famed novel Faggots (with which he won few friends in gay circles), was every bit as angry and inspirational this month when he addressed a crowd at the LGBT Centre in New York City's Greenwich Village on Tuesday, 13 March.
Kramer told the crowd that they must not accept crumbs from the current crop of political candidates. "There is not one single candidate running for public office anywhere that deserves our votes, not one!" he thundered. "I will not vote for a one of them and neither should you, to vote for any one of them, to lend any one of them your support, is to collude with them in their utter disdain for us, and we must let every single one of them know that we will not support them."
AIDS COALITION TO UNLEASH POWER - ACT UP - ARRIVES IN AUSTRALIA IN 1990
Photo in the Sydney Star Observer, 20 April 1990
Members of the Gay Solidarity Group were involved with ACT UP from its inception in Sydney until its collapse. The following item appeared in Gay Solidarity Newsletter No. 11 in April/May 1990:
Ten years into the AIDS crisis some new drugs were at last becoming available - but in the USA - not Australia. The rate at which approvals were being given for new AIDS drugs to be used in Australia was slow to static and ACT UP decided to do something about it. The following leaflets show the start of a campaign attacking the Federal Health Minister Brian Howe.
During 1993 a severe bed crisis hit St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney. ACT UP went into action and demonstrated when one of its members, who had to be admitted, was found lying on a stretcher in casualty for some considerable length of time.
Our records to date show a newsletter produced by ACT UP from November 1990 to August 1992 ACT UP called LOWDOWN. We reproduce below those copies in our possession and request anyone with missing copies to contact us so that we can complete them on these web pages.
These stickers, designed to draw attention to the HIV/AIDS crisis and Act up's activities were to be stuck onto the pedestrian buttons at traffic lights around the country.
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