1977: An Unwelcome Visitor Comes to Toronto

[excerpt from the editorial section of the The Toronto Sun, July 10 1977**]

[...]

This week Anita Bryant will be arriving in Toronto to speak at the People's Church. Now many of you out there may have heard about this event and you may believe that all gays and lesbians are opposed to Anita Bryant. And you would be mostly right. The Coalition to Stop Anita Bryant was formed a few months ago with the sole purpose of stopping her arrival into the country and this organization is mainly run by the gay and lesbian community as well as gay and lesbian allies.

You would also be right to point out that the Christian anti-gay movement has one purpose and one purpose only: to stop the lesbian and gay movement from gaining political ground and to repeal what little ground we have gained for ourselves. Anita Bryant and her compatriots are also responsible for constantly villifying gays and lesbians as pedophiles and anti-family when in fact all we want is the same legal rights as those afforded to other minority groups such as African Americans and women.

However it is the opinion of this journalist that we should welcome Anita with open arms, since she is giving our community hitherto unprecedented access to front-page headlines and lead story billings on the very same television and news media outlets that have ignored us for so long. It is unfortunate that the first images so many individuals must see of our community are ones of protest, but in my opinion this kind of visibility is just what the movement needs right now!

[end of excerpt]

This is a real document from the 1977 demonstrations against the arrival of Anita Bryant in Toronto. Click to read the full statement and decide for yourself whether or not you would have participated in this call to action!

References:

 Caricature dawing of Anita Bryant taken from Workers World, 1977. Courtesy of:

Days Without Sunshine: Anita Bryant’s Anti-Gay Crusade. The Stonewall Library and Archives. http://www.stonewall-library.org/anita/

Gay workers Unite Leaflet from the Meeting Notes of the Gay Marxist Study Group, March 17 1977. Courtesy of the Left History Volume 9 Issue 2, Special Online Collection."Workers of the World Caress"

http://www.yorku.ca/lefthist/online/doc_pages/full/workersa.html

Fetner, Tina. "Working Anita Bryant: The Impact of Christian Anti-Gay Activism on Lesbian and Gay Movement Claims." Social Problems. 48.3 (2001): 411-428.

**Fictionalized 

1975: The Wrongful Dismissal of John Damien

[excerpt from the diary of John Damien**]

February 7, 1975.

Today was probably one of the hardest and most frustrating days of my life. After twenty years of dedicated work for the Ontario Jockey Commission as a trainer and jockey, I was let go today. While being fired is never easy, I think the reason why today has been so difficult is because I was fired without cause. I am one of the top three racing judges in Ontario and was, until recently, highly sought after for my talents and abilities. This was of course before the Commission became aware of the fact that I was, and always have been, gay. 
 

Sure I was never very active in any kind of organizing or politics on the basis - it just didn't interest me - but now that I have been put through this I feel as if I should have been all along. I am so frustrated with situation and I don’t know what to do. 

 July 1, 1975. 

A photo of Chris Bearchell, myself and Charlie Hill speaking
at the founding conference of the National Coalition for Gay Rights in Ottawa earlier today.

So much has happened since the last time I wrote here. After all my initial frustrations I finally contacted the Ontario Human Rights Comission about my wrongful dismissal and argued that sexual orientation was implicit in the provincial human rights code. But they declined to accept my complaint. After that,  I was leaving one of my favourite bars, which also happens to cater to a mainly gay and lesbian clientele, and I saw an ad on the wall for an organization called GATE (the Gay Alliance Toward Equality). I made one simple phone call to GATE and since then things have been so much better for me. I have found a huge amount of support from within the gay community and beyond. People have helped me fund-raise for legal costs and have even pushed for rights I didn’t even know I had, like broadening the human rights code to include the ‘sexual orientation.’ Today I attended the founding conference of the National Coalition for Gay Rights in Ottawa with a few of my friends from GATE and to me this feels like only the beginning...

[end of entry]

The Canadian Human Rights Code was eventually amended in 1986 to include sexual orientation. Damien passed away six days later of pancreatic cancer. While it is important to remember the achievement itself, it is also necessary for us to recognize the contributions of brave and outspoken individuals who stood alone and acted as catalysts for change.

References:

Photo Credit: The Ottawa Journal, City of Ottawa Archives.

Smith, Miriam. Lesbian and Gay Rights in Canada: Social Movements and Equality-Seeking, 1971-1995. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

**Fictionalized