Rodney Peter Croome AM is an Australian LGBT rights activist and academic. He worked on the campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in Tasmania, was a founder of Australian Marriage Equality, and currently serves as the spokesperson for the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group and a spokesperson for LGBT advocacy group Just.Equal. Early life 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. Activism Tasmania 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 The Tasmanian Government repealed the relevant Criminal Code provisions after failing in its attempts to have the matter struck out.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. Croome called for reviews of blood donors processes, saying the screening process of blood donors did not question heterosexuals on their safe sex practices, but singled out gay and bisexual men as high risk: "It's really time for the Red Cross to change its policy and focus on whether donors have safe or unsafe sex rather than the gender of the person they have sex with." Same-sex marriage Croome was one of the first advocates in Australia to raise the issue of same-sex marriage circa 2004, at a time when it wasn't a popular topic of discussion both within the LGBTI community and more broadly. Despite opposition to the idea of marriage equality, Croome would commit the next 13 years of his life fighting for marriage equality for all Australians. In 2010, Croome