Reviewing the sixties: homosexual law reform and the limits of liberalism

In this article I survey debate about male homosexuality and law reform in Australia during the 1960s. Medical and Church circles were among the first professions to discuss the 'condition' of homosexuality. From here, public discussion widened into a debate over the merits of law reform. I suggest that while a spirit of liberal reform reduced some of the criminal and moral stigma associated with homosexuality, the liberalism of the 1960s could not conceive of homosexuality as a political subjectivity.