{"story":["New Zealand's laws against sex between men followed English legal tradition. In 1861 England replaced the death penalty for buggery with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and New Zealand enacted similar legislation six years later. Any sexual activity between men of any age became unlawful in England in 1885, and New Zealand followed in 1893. The Crimes Act 1961 removed the possible term of life imprisonment for sodomy, but all legal sanctions against homosexual activity remained. The Dorian Society, established by gay Wellington men in 1962, was primarily a social club. On 17 April 1967 about 150 people attended a public meeting in Wellington to form a society to work for law reform, which soon became the New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Society. In 1968 a petition signed by 75 prominent citizens was presented to Parliament, which rejected it.","In early 1972 Gay Liberation groups sprang up in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch after the academic Ngahuia Te Awekotuku was denied a permit to visit the United States on the grounds that she was homosexual. In 1974 the MP Venn Young introduced a Crimes Amendment Bill to legalise private 'homosexual acts' between consenting adults, with a proposed age of consent of 21, later reduced to 20; it did not become law. The age of consent was a major issue for the gay movement, which argued that it should be 16, the same as for heterosexuals. On 8 March 1985 the Labour MP Fran Wilde introduced the Homosexual Law Reform Bill, a private member's bill she had developed in consultation with gay groups. Its first part dealt with decriminalising sexual offences between men and consensual heterosexual anal intercourse, while protecting minors of both sexes. Its second would have made discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation illegal in employment, accommodation and the supply of goods and services.","Gay and lesbian groups had been assured that the campaign would be short and confined to Parliament. Instead the bill's opponents organised virtually from the moment it was introduced, supported by organisations such as the Salvation Army and by overseas campaigners against homosexuality, and the debate soon became acrimonious. Their arguments often rested on moral and religious grounds; some claimed the law would lead to the collapse of the family, and some raised the spectre of AIDS. At a public meeting in 1985 the National MP Norman Jones told homosexuals to 'go back into the sewers where you come from'. Reformers argued that decriminalisation would let people at risk come forward for testing, and groups such as the Gay Task Force, Heterosexuals Unafraid of Gays and the Lesbian Coalition organised marches and rallies and disrupted anti-reform meetings. On 24 September 1985 a petition against the bill was presented at Parliament in a ceremony that some critics likened to the Nuremberg Rallies. Ninety-one boxes were delivered to the steps of Parliament, and it was claimed that they held over 800,000 signatures. Some boxes were nearly empty, however, and some sheets contained several signatures in the same hand. These irregularities led Parliament's Petitions Committee to reject the petition, though NZHistory judges that it still showed strong opposition to the bill.","The bill took 16 months to pass through Parliament. NZHistory records that MPs rejected an amendment to raise the age of consent to 18; Wikipedia records that amendments for both 20 and 18 were defeated, and that the bill's staunchest opponents voted against a higher age in the belief that no one would vote for a bill with an age of 16. On 2 July 1986, again according to Wikipedia, an attempt by opponents to end the debate was defeated by one vote, 41 to 42. At the final vote on 9 July the bill passed by 49 votes to 44. The governor-general gave his assent two days later, and the Act came into force on 8 August. It removed criminal sanctions against consensual homosexual conduct between males, with an age of consent of 16, the same as for heterosexuals. For the first time in New Zealand history, NZHistory notes, homosexual men could enter into sexual relationships without fear of prosecution. But the second part of the bill, which would have outlawed discrimination, was rejected, and NZHistory calls the outcome, for the law reformers, 'only a partial victory'.","Not until the Human Rights Act was passed in 1993 did it become illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation. Te Ara dates the Civil Union Act to 2004, while NZHistory places it in 2005; it allowed same-sex and heterosexual couples to enter a legally recognised union. In April 2013 Parliament passed the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act, a private member's bill introduced by the Labour MP Louisa Wall, and New Zealand became the 13th country in the world, and the first in the Asia-Pacific region, to allow same-sex couples to marry. On 10 April 2018, Wikipedia records, the Criminal Records (Expungement of Convictions for Historical Homosexual Offences) Act came into effect. NZHistory concludes that legislative changes do not in themselves change attitudes, and that gays and lesbians can still find it difficult to be out and about."],"sources":[{"title":"Homosexual law reform","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/homosexual-law-reform","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Homosexual law reform – Reforming the law","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/homosexual-law-reform/reforming-the-law","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Homosexual law reform – Setting the scene","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/homosexual-law-reform/setting-the-scene","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Homosexual law reform – Birth of the gay movement","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/homosexual-law-reform/birth-of-the-gay-movement","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Gay men's lives – Gay activism and law reform","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/gay-mens-lives/page-2","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986","url":"https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0033/latest/whole.html","publisher":"New Zealand Legislation"},{"title":"Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_Law_Reform_Act_1986","publisher":"Wikipedia"}]}