Queer venue’s closure signals religion’s enduring clout

This month’s closure of Divine Playhouse in Sydney is the most recent episode in a long history of attacks on satirical artistic expression that offends certain conservative religious interests.

With no shortage of willing queer artists and followers, the Divine Playhouse promised to be a hilarious and inclusive pop-up venture. Artists dressed as nuns carrying sex toys and a mock communion were part of the spectacle. But the show had barely opened before it was shut down after about 100 right-wing Christians, including members of Prodigal Sons and Fit for the Kingdom, protested outside the venue.

After building outrage on social media, the activists’ theatrical protest involved invoking saints and urging everyone to stand firm in the face of evil.

The now-deserted building, which once served as a church but also as a poor house, homeless shelter and a community theatre, belongs to Revelop, which has an empire of residential, retail and commercial property developments.

The development company terminated Divine Playhouse’s one-year lease under breach of a clause which prohibited tenants from conducting “offensive trade” by mocking “sincerely held religious beliefs of millions of Christian Australians”. The clause originates from a mid-19th century law designed to combat foul smells from abattoirs. It was never intended to be an instrument of censorship.

The eviction notice might survive a court challenge but in practice Divine Playhouse had to shut down and look for a new venue.

The building is padlocked until the City of Sydney approves Revelop’s plan to demolish the surrounding buildings for luxury apartments, retail and a car park. The old building will become an upmarket bar, adding a heritage tone to the development.

Revelop has arguably imposed an absolutist view of good and evil on a community, the vast majority of whom, including many practising Catholics, would not be agitated by the Playhouse.

This scenario takes me back to the late 1960s when we fought against notions of “moral depravity” which underpinned the old obscenity laws.

Anti-censorship groups, tired of sitting through blacked-out sections of international movies, were picketing theatres. Publishing houses were too timid to produce challenging material by Australian authors.

In 1970, I was one of the editors of UNSW student newspaper Tharunka when we determined to “act free by being free” and publish a supplement of censored literary works.

For months, conservatives had called on the NSW government to crack down. A small group of right-wing evangelist students burnt Tharunkas, but thousands of others supported us. No action was taken until we published a poem, C— is a Christian Word, which focused on repression in the Catholic Church. Priests delivered sermons demanding censorship. Finally, two of our team were summonsed to court.

Defiant, we attended court dressed as nuns adorned with slogans from the poem. I was arrested wearing a habit with the words, “I have been f—ed by god’s steel prick.” Months later, a jury reached a compromise verdict that the poem was not obscene but the slogan on the nun’s costume was. A lawyer sent the poem to thousands of lawyers, informing them it was not obscene. This triggered more outrage from right-wing media, but the boundaries had shifted.

By 1972, juries were declining to convict those charged with obscenities. A large number of summons were withdrawn or ended in minor penalties. The old censorship regime had fallen apart.

By then gay liberation was on the rise. In 1981, gay liberationists donned nuns’ habits and formed a chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in Sydney. In the 1980s, three sisters were arrested for the slogan “anti-woman, anti-gay, fascist Pope go away!” during conservative Pope John Paul II’s visit. One street theatre involved exorcising the devil from Darlinghurst Police Station which was notorious for police violence and corruption. It is now the QTopia Sydney queer museum.

By the 1990s, the Sisters were cheered by hundreds of thousands of annual Mardi Gras spectators. Today they conduct walking tours.

While right-wing activists are spreading outrage about Create NSW granting $100,000 to Divine Playhouse, the Greens are pushing for the Minister for Music and Night-time Economy, John Graham, to support a further grant for the group to establish itself in a secure venue. A “Sing-in” protest is planned for Saturday in Hyde Park.

The queer community will survive this destructive blow and secure another venue. But this is far bigger than access to a venue and demonstrates why NSW badly needs a Human Rights Act.

This is not an isolated incident. Conservative group Christian Lives Matter staged intimidating marches against the LGBTQ community in King Street Newtown in 2023 following The Project television program airing a sexual joke about Jesus earlier in the week. They, of course, do not represent Christian views generally.

There is no denying the huge gains for the LGBTQ community over half a century. But today’s activists face different challenges. While we had the wind behind us, today’s activists need our support in standing their ground against headwinds from the far right, including conservative Christians in its ranks.

Wendy Bacon is an independent journalist.