The most vocal political opponent of Wilde's was the Invercargill firebrand Norman Jones who waved his walking stick around in Parliament's debating chamber, telling those of that persuasion to go back to the sewers they came from. They belonged in the gutter, and Jones said that's where they should stay. Fuelling the ignorance, Jones warned against gazing at homosexuals for too long because you could get Aids.
To interview him during that period was an exercise in editing out the vitriol, the sort that was common in another, more sinister era when Jones lost his leg during the Second World War. Indeed, the presentation of an 800,000 signature petition to Parliament opposing law reform was described at the time as resembling a Nuremberg Rally.
Petition boxes were delivered from the electorates. Some of them were virtually empty and others had signatures by the same hand, so the petition was discarded - which incensed the opponents even more.
New Zealand has fortunately come a long way since the days when homosexual suspects were under surveillance. Several years before Wilde's law, a spy's briefcase was delivered to my office that contained a pie and a Penthouse. Also in it was a notebook detailing what was described as lascivious male suspects being observed dining together in the capital.
Convictions from that era still remain on the "criminal" rap sheets of those who were convicted of what was considered lewd behaviour - which is clearly ridiculous.
Rather than Armageddon, New Zealand's become a more tolerant place than it once was and we should salute those who made it that way.
