Craig Johnston (politician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Craig Fredric Johnston (born 1951) is an LGBT activist and former politician. He was active in the Australian Labor Party, Communist Party of Australia. He is considered a founding member of the gay rights movement in Sydney in the 1970s and 1980s, having established the Gay Rights Lobby with Lex Watson in 1980, four years before homosexuality was decriminalised in New South Wales in 1984.[1]
An activist and office-holder with the Australian Union of Students, he dropped out of a University of New South Wales Commerce degree and then completed a Political Science degree with Honours at the University of Sydney.[2]
Activism
He had become a "leading gay activist" by the late 1970s and 1980s, and was involved in the beginnings of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras as well as co-organising the first AIDS candlelight vigils in Australia.[3][4][5][6] In 1980 he co-founded the Gay Rights Lobby with Lex Watson.[7]
Johnston is considered one of Australia's "most important gay activists" both for his practical activities and "his contribution to the theory and practice of gay politics."[8]