Rodney Croome

Rodney Peter Croome AM is an Australian LGBT rights activist and academic. Croome currently serves as the spokesperson for the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group and was a former national director of Australian Marriage Equality.

Croome grew up on a dairy farm in Tasmania's North West and studied European History at the University of Tasmania, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1988.

Croome was the founding president and long-term board member of the Tasmanian LGBT support organisation, 'Working It Out' as well as serving on various other similar organisations and had been in a leading role in the establishing challenging-homophobia education in Tasmanian state schools and in the Tasmanian Police, as well as the instituting of anti-discrimination laws in Tasmania. He also fronted the successful campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in Tasmania, which until 1 May 1997 was a criminal offence punishable by up to 25 years in jail. That campaign saw Tasmanian activists take their case to the United Nations (Toonen v Australia), the Federal Government and the High Court. In 1997 in the case of Croome v Tasmania, Croome applied to the High Court of Australia for a ruling as to whether the Tasmanian laws were inconsistent with the Federal Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act (1994). The Tasmanian Government repealed the relevant Criminal Code provisions after failing in its attempts to have the matter struck out. In 2009, Croome was named one of the 25 most influential gay Australians by readers of the website samesame.com.au.

In 2010, Croome co-authored a book presenting the cases for and against marriage equality, entitled WHY vs WHY: Gay Marriage (Pantera Press).

In 2012, Croome became the fifth National Director of Australian Marriage Equality. On 8 May 2013 Croome debated Patrick Langrell on Same Sex Marriage at the University of New South Wales. In September 2013 Rodney Croome wrote to the group Community Action Against Homophobia CAAH expressing his concerns in regards to the radical campaigning methods they use in same-sex marriage campaigns saying, "It is a double standard to demand respect for same-sex relationships without showing the same respect in return". Croome supports Australia's trans and intersex communities in their quest for marriage equality saying, "the marriage equality campaign must be inclusive of all loving committed couples regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status"

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