's Blogs

<p>Gay history is filled with Oscar Wilde and the Stonewall riots, but a month or so ago a pioneer in the gay community in New Zealand died.</p>
<p>Tony Katavich, along with his business partners, stood up and was counted at a time when not only was gay sex illegal, but openly repressed, in my country and did so at enormous personal cost.</p>
<p>I knew Tony's business partner, Brett Sheppard, very well, but only met him on a single occasion when he told me an hilarious story -</p>
<p>In 1975, in the bad old days, their gay sauna was subjected to its periodical raid by the Police and if that wasn't bad enough, one of the walls chose that moment to cave in - literally on top of around 100 men having sex with each other!</p>
<p>As the Police were pulling bleeding, naked men out of the rubble covered in bricks and masonry, the Inspector in charge of the raid wasn't sure whether to arrest everyone or call for ambulances! haha!</p>
<p>Here is his obituary <a href="http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/34/article_14411.php">http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/34/article_14411.php</a></p>