Canadian Queer History in the Making - Kathleen Wynne

Ontario's Liberal party - struggling on so many fronts these days - nevertheless made history yesterday in selecting Kathleen Wynne as their new leader, and by extension, the new Premier of the province.  The second woman to head the Ontario Liberals, Wynne will become the first woman to be Ontario's Premier.  And more excitingly for me, she will be the first openly gay Premier in Canadian history.  Now, whether the Ontario Liberals, who are in a fairly precarious minority situation right now, will be able to hold on to power for much longer, is an open question.  But in the short term at least, history has been made, and there will certainly be a new line in Canadian history textbooks marking this Canadian first.

Of course, many have asked in the past 14 hours why the adjective "openly" is always added into the newspaper headlines and mentions by media commentators.  This speaks to the rather interesting media culture in this country.  From all accounts, Wynne is not in fact the first gay premier in the country (for the highest-profile instance, do a quick search on New Brunswick's long-serving Progressive Conservative premier Richard Hatfield, who passed away in the early 1990s, or follow this link to a story in the Globe.).  But the media culture in Canada is loathe to out a politician who has not come out.  And so we've probably had other instances of gay premiers, and likely gay party leaders, cabinet ministers, etc. who were not openly gay.  In many of these cases, their sexual orientation was an open secret to the media, their friends, their close acquaintances.  But there is still quite the culture of privacy in Canadian reporting on this issue.

So, congratulations to Kathleen Wynne on being selected as Ontario's new premier, and to Ontario's Liberal convention delegates for selecting her as your leader.  It is a marker of how much has changed in this province over such a short period of time.

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Bill 13's passage, GSAs and the Catholic Church

Bill 13, Ontario's anti-bullying legislation, passed third reading in the legislature today.  The bill obtained 65 votes in support from the Liberal and NDP members, and 36 votes against from the Conservatives.

I'm quite pleased that this legislation passed in the final form that it assumed, which incorporated amendments giving students the right to call their clubs "gay-straight alliances" if they so chose.  This measure, of course, has infuriated the Catholic hierarchy, as one might well expect.  One can certainly expect that there will eventually be a court case pitting the denominational rights of Catholic schools in Ontario against this legislation and the rights of the students that the province seeks to protect.

What makes me quite pleased is that if there is to be a court case, the province has now made it quite clear where it stands on the very sensitive issue of explicitly using the term "gay", which the Catholic church rejects.  This means, I believe, that the province will be in the thick of it in a court case, defending its own law, rather than forcing a student group to try to make the case in court against a school board that they should be allowed to call these groups gay-straight alliances, in the absence of clear wording in the legislation to support their case.  I expect that now the financial burden of defending this legislation will rightly fall to the provincial government, rather than students and their supporters who should not have to shoulder the heavy burden of court costs to defend their position.  (And of course, if the courts do rule in favour of the Catholic boards, there always exists the option of a constitutional amendment to remove public funding for the Catholic schools, which would require the consent of only the Ontario and federal governments.)

I'm sure that the next few years will be tumultuous ones on this front as the Catholic hierarchy in Ontario lurches about like a wounded bear, aggrieved by this legislation.  I can only hope that the tide of public opinion, which currently seems to support the students and the province's legislation, holds firm as we move forward.

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Dalton McGuinty, GSAs and Catholic Schools - A rose by an ambiguous name

Over the past several days, Bill 13, the Accepting Schools Act, 2012 has been in committee hearings. This is the provincial government's anti-bullying legislation, meant to provide support groups in schools for various groups of students that have been victims of bullying, but, when it comes right down to it, is aimed to provide protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans students who have been blocked from forming support groups, particularly in the province's publicly-funded Catholic schools.

This saga has been ongoing for quite some time now, with a major flare-up last year in the summer prior to the provincial election, when the It Gets Better campaign was drawing tons of media attention to the issue of bullying queer youth. At the time, it seemed that the McGuinty government wanted to keep the issue off the front burner for the election campaign. With the election now behind them, the provincial Liberals have introduced this legislation.

This gets me to the crux of this post. Many gay organizations, foremost among them Queer Ontario and the Xtra! chain of newspapers, have been pushing very strongly for Bill 13 to explicitly include provisions that would mandate that support groups formed by students under the protection of this legislation would have an explicitly defined right to call their groups "Gay-Straight Alliances" or GSAs. Catholic groups, in particular trustees, have repeatedly stated that they won't permit this, citing directives from the Vatican, and have indicated that at best they would allow something called "Respecting Differences" groups. Queer organizations, with Xtra! reporter Drea Houston chief among them, have been pushing Education Minister Laurel Broten and Postsecondary Education minister Glen Murray (who had been the point person on this issue in the pre-election period) to be clear about whether these explicit protections would be incorporated into the legislation.

Now, one can debate back and forth as to whether the name of the group is a crucial issue. One can also make the case that insisting on the terminology might make it harder for groups to form that in practice would provide a supportive environment, regardless of what trustees might like (since it is remarkable what can happen under the guidance of a supportive teacher). I've had these discussions elsewhere. But what has been galling me is the cowardice and double-talk that has emanated from the government. Ministers Broten and Murray (the latter particularly on Twitter) have gone back and forth as to whether the bill, as currently worded, would require that schools accept groups named as GSAs - even in the face of trustees testifying before the committee that such names would be explicitly prohibited. They have also implied that they think that a group seeking to use such a name would have the protection of the Charter (as a free speech issue). And yet, they are not willing to take the step of explicitly incorporating the right to use this name in the legislation, claiming that this might violate Catholic school board rights under section 93 of the Constitution.

My problem with this stance is as follows. We don't currently know whether imposing GSAs (called such) on Catholic school boards would violate the Constitution. We do know that student groups want to use this name, and that Catholic trustees have vowed to stop this. So the question is: who ends up in the courtroom when this inevitable case comes before the courts, and who foots the bill for the extensive legal costs (because we're probably looking at a case that is Supreme Court-bound)? It seems pretty clear that the McGuinty government is trying to avoid being the "bad guy", imposing its will on the Catholic school boards, and would prefer that the rights issue be settled by a citizen group - with all the legal and political costs that entails. It's symptomatic, to my mind, of the lack of political leadership that we've seen in the post-Charter era on contentious social issues, where governments of all stripes try to avoid acting themselves and offload responsibility for defending or seeking rights onto citizens, and onto the courts to rule on them. It feeds into a conservative discourse of judge-made law, and it is something that progressives should be worried about. If our "supportive" governments refuse to show leadership on our behalf on issues they profess to believe in, then they are indirectly providing fuel for their conservative opponents who decry the increased power of the courts (and may yet start appointing judges more friendly to their interpretations).

I might feel differently about this issue if I thought that the provincial Liberals actually were not supportive of the GSA name. But I think that in this case, they are playing politics and trying to avoid a Catholic backlash at the ballot box. Which makes today's news that a majority of Ontarians support GSAs and oppose public funding of Catholic schools quite interesting indeed. A little food for thought for our confrontation-averse provincial government, perhaps?

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Rick Mercer, the Globe, Bullying and Gay Visibility

This post is my response to the recent public debate about Rick Mercer’s Rant and the subsequent Globe and Mail editorial attacking his position on the need for gay adults to come out as part of the answer to fighting homophobia and bullying. If you already know the history of this issue, jump ahead to paragraph six.

I was somewhat surprised to discover that it has now been over a year since Dan Savage launched the It Gets Better campaign, a YouTube-hosted group outreach project where people share their personal experiences and try to offer GLBT youth the message that although it can be very difficult for them right now, their lives can and will get better. In the months that followed, the campaign has attracted a tremendous amount of media and public attention, and there have been productive debates (some of which I discussed in this post last year) over how the campaign could and should go further to not only express a message of hope, but also lead to more direct action about issues such as bullying and depression that can contribute to the plight of queer youth. Savage himself has come out on numerous occasions to strongly support these calls for additional action, beyond the initial awareness-raising outreach efforts of the IGB campaign.

Of course, despite this, there have still been countless numbers of gay youth who continue to be isolated, and some have taken their own lives. Indeed, in recent months, there have been gay youth who have explicitly referenced the IGB campaign, and even made their own videos, but still committed suicide. In a number of these cases, other issues such as depression have been a contributing factor. The result of these incidents, though, has been a revival of the issue in the eyes of the media (with some interesting consequences, like actor Zachary Quinto’s recent coming out).

Over the past weeks, the suicide of a gay youth in Ottawa prompted a group of Conservative MPs to record their own IGB video, with an emphasis on anti-bullying efforts. Some critics derided this effort, citing the vicious anti-gay stance that had been taken by many of these MPs, such as Vic Toews, over the past decade. Others viewed this video in a more positive light, pointing out that this was still a small step in the right direction from individuals who have amends to make. On Tuesday night, comedian Rick Mercer stepped into the fray once again, dedicating his Rant to a call for authorities to take action against these bullies, but also for gay and lesbian adults to step up, come out, and provide much needed role models for gay youth. Although Mercer did not explicitly include himself among that cohort of gay adults in the rant (and I was critical of him at the time for failing to include that important nuance), he subsequently did so on the Thursday morning edition of CBC’s The Current, and discussed how the process of coming out and being out is an ongoing, recurrent one, and that he himself often overestimates the degree to which he is out in public life, given that he has been out to friends and coworkers for a long time now, although many of his viewers remain unaware of his sexual orientation.

This morning, the Globe and Mail attacked Mercer’s position in its lead editorial, which cited a number of reasons why individuals might choose to remain in the closet and not disclose their sexual orientations for personal reasons. The editorialist equated Mercer’s position to a burden being placed on all gay and lesbian public figures, rhetorically asking “Would every gay person now need to hold a news conference?” Calling his position “wrong, terribly wrong,” the editorialist claimed that Mercer was arguing that “it falls to successful gay adults to protect vulnerable gay teens from the problems associated with being different” and argued that instead “the job of protecting gay teens or anyone else from bullying falls to everyone.”

I found myself getting very upset at the dismissive, holier-than-thou stance taken by the Globe’s editorial this morning, and its protestations of outrage of “how dare he” impose a moral obligation on gay men and lesbians, forcing them out of the closet when they have so recently won the right to live their lives without discrimination. As I gave this issue more thought over the course of the day, I realized that the source of my concerns is how this issue has been dealt with by politicians and some media outlets. At issue is the question of linkages. The reason why the IGB campaign got as much coverage as it did is because of the tragedies that have resulted from the plight of gay youth – particularly the suicides of the summer of 2010, and those recently in Canada and the United States. And so, while there was an initial flurry of YouTube videos from gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered adults, this was soon followed by liberal-minded politicians and media personalities.

But along the way, the emphasis of the media message shifted, and it has continued to shift. Because the focal issue became less about a systemic culture that is not gay positive (or to get jargon-y, is homophobic and/or heteronormative), into a focus on the supposed proximate causes of the suicides – bullying and depression, although this latter issue shows up much less in the speeches and videos. And so it has become possible for those who want to appear sensitive to recent events to put most of their efforts on the more universally accepted issue of fighting bullying, while avoiding the particular challenges of gay youth that are rooted in the broader culture of North America (and elsewhere) which is often one that teaches that their sexual orientation is abnormal, deviant, a sin, and the list goes on. So, in the minds and messages of many politicians and public figures, the challenge became how to fight the symptom of bullying, and create safer schools. This has had the positive effect of creating a dialogue about how to foster safer schools for all who are bullied, and serving as a call for all adults, both gay and straight, to take direct action rather than just espousing a message that change will come. And this is the zone in which the Globe’s editorialist has positioned their contribution – a message that “bullying is bad, and all people have a responsibility to fight it”.

But where Mercer’s Rant is aimed is at a different core issue, which is the particular combination of challenges facing GLBT youth. They do not just have to face a climate of bullying in high schools (which many other youth so as well), but a society that still has some pretty deeply entrenched anti-gay attitudes, and shockingly few high profile gay public figures. It is a society in which it is well-known that Hollywood is chock-a-block with gay actors who are told to remain the closet to protect their careers, and that the halls of Parliament and Congress are littered with closeted gay politicians, who only seem to come out when forced to do so by an affair (a slight exaggeration admittedly, and less true in Canada). It is a society where, as the Globe dodges, but implicitly admits, it might be harder to live your life if you are open about your sexual orientation and your career prospects might be hindered because of the prejudice of others. Mercer’s rant argues that more gay and lesbian adults need to come out – and keep coming out, rather than just doing it once to friends and family – in order to normalize homosexuality, to make it part of the common fabric, and to make it part and parcel of what it means to be a public figure. He knows, as so many gay men and lesbians do, that our governments, media and businesses are filled with high-powered gay men and lesbians who are not “publicly” out, although many may be to their close acquaintances. But this does little to demonstrate to those struggling with their sexuality and feeling isolated in high school that our society is thoroughly permeated by the presence of gay men and lesbians at all levels.

Mercer is not calling for a press conference for all of these individuals. Although it might not hurt if a few more highly placed individuals in Canada did make a point of doing so. But coming out publicly can take different forms. It can be a matter of a politician, when speaking on the campaign trail, of casually referring to their partner (or wife, or husband) by name – just as any heterosexual politician does all the time – rather than letting it be thought that they are single and straight. It could be openly attending public events with one’s same-sex partner. There are numerous ways in which straight politicians and public figures “come out” as straight all the time by virtue of who they are seen with, how they speak about their relationships and the mere fact that they do speak about their relationships. What Mercer is calling for, if I understand his message correctly, is for gay adults to do more of this. Because while the issue of bullying can be fought by all adults, only gay men and lesbians can take steps to provide visibility of gay individuals in public life to combat the assumption that everyone in the adult world is straight.

And in case you’re wondering, I do try to walk the walk on this issue, in my semi-public life as a professor. I don’t just blog about issues related to my sexuality where those “in the know” will find out. I try to be visible within the university, but without being aggressive about it. So if I’m chatting with students on a break partway through class, I will make reference to “my husband”. Because many of my courses do deal with recent political history, I can incorporate references to gay and lesbian rights in Canada in a fairly natural way, and I’ve often picked those classes as an opportunity to make a casual reference to how those social movements made it possible for me to marry my husband (prompting a flurry of Google searches of “matthew hayday gay” that land on this blog). I don’t jump up and down in my students’ faces making all my courses about my personal life and my politics, but nor do I shy away from making references to my personal life if it is appropriate – just as many, many other straight colleagues of mine do all the time when they illustrate contemporary issues, or make a casual, conversational aside in the middle of their lectures. It is surprising how often one’s personal life does come up in casual conversation, if you let it. But as many gay men and lesbians will tell you, if they are honest about it, they also clam up or evade the specific details on a regular basis, depending on their audience. A good first step to changing that, and being more out, is to stop self-censoring as often. That alone will start a broader process of raising the visibility of gay adults, and hopefully have trickle-down impacts to allow others to take the bolder step of the public declaration, should they wish.

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Working on recent history - some reflections

In my professional life, I usually find myself researching and writing on topics that deal with the last fifty or so years of Canadian history. This sometimes leads to people thinking that I'm not a historian, but a political scientist. It also means that I often have access to living subjects for my research, and can interview or contact people who lived through the events I'm writing about to gain their insight on issues. I can tap into rich oral histories for information, perspectives and details about the past that aren't always found in the documentary or archival record.

One of the consequences of this, however, is that I'm often made all too aware of the passage of time in the course of my research. I will often be speaking with someone connected to my research, and have them mention that a given person would have been perfect for me to talk to, except that they passed away a couple of years ago. Pierre Trudeau, whose career was so central to my research interests, passed away mere weeks before my comprehensive exams as a PhD student. Senator Ron Duhamel, who I interviewed about his involvement in Franco-Manitoban education for my PhD, passed away a few months after we spoke.

Today this was driven home to me yet again. Just two months ago, I posted a query in a couple of places, including this blog, seeking contact information about people who had been gay writer-activists for a textbook reader that I'm collaborating on. Many people replied to my queries (queeries?) on Facebook, Twitter and here, allowing me to tap into the diverse networks of current and former activists, many of whom are still in close touch with each other. I also got a lot of help from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Unfortunately, in the course of these inquiries, I found out that one of the authors, Chris Bearchell, had passed away from breast cancer only a few years ago. Today, I found out that Herb Spiers, co-author of the "We Demand" manifesto from 1971 and a prominent gay activist, passed away on March 2nd. Only a few weeks ago the permissions researcher for my textbook had been in touch with him, shortly after he had been in hospital.

My apologies for what might seem like a rather melancholy post. I consider myself lucky, as a historian, that I often do get to speak with people who were involved in the events of history, and share in their memories. The conversations that I have had with these people are almost always incredibly rewarding and thought-provoking, and often much fun. Many people have been incredibly generous in sharing their stories with me. But the flip side is that the relative short duration of human lives all too often crops up in unexpected ways as I conduct my research.

Thanks, Herb, for your life's work!

Addendum: Although I never had the opportunity to speak to Herb Spiers directly as part of my own research, he did share many of his experiences with the ACT UP Oral History Project.

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Adventures in Copyright - A Plea for Assistance

Over the past few years, a number of publishing projects have made me keenly aware of how complicated Canadian (and international) copyright law can be. Right now, I'm working on a textbook module on gay and lesbian activism in 1970s Canada for Nelson publishing. I'm proposing to include three book chapters and scholarly articles, plus a selection of material that was originally published in Toronto's The Body Politic periodical. Sounds simple, right? Alas, when it comes to securing copyright, it is anything but, and this seems to be the case for much material published in periodicals prior to the 1990s. While Pink Triangle Press, who published TBP, is keen to allow us permission to use this material, they aren't certain who legally holds the copyright, and so we have to track down the original authors/photographers/cartoonists. But what does one do if they don't know who the photographer was, or if the author is deceased. That, my gentle readers, calls for careful detective work.

So, on the off chance that this post is seen by some friendly readers familiar with gay and lesbian activists of the 1970s, I'd greatly appreciate any leads that can help me track down someone who might know about the estates of Chris Bearchell or Michael Lynch, or who knows who was leading Toronto Gay Action in 1971 and could authorize the reprinting of the "We Demand" manifesto. My email contact information is listed in my profile.

Many thanks!

ETA: Thanks to the various people who have provided me with helpfor this query! I think I now have all the information I could hope to have found.

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Asking and Telling

After last week's flurry of excitement, including the support of eight Republican senators on the final vote, President Obama signed into law the bill that will lead to the end of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the United States' military, allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly.

As a good, smug Canadian, I'm tempted to quip, "Welcome to the 1990s!" Of the various human rights concerns facing the gay and lesbian population in the United States, this issue would have been one of the lower-priority causes for me. But on the other hand, I'm well aware of the symbolic importance of being able to serve in the military in a country where this is considered an important part of national service and citizenship. It is also an important federal recognition of equal rights and equal treatment regardless of one's sexual orientation.

However, as someone who got legally married to another man six years ago, I can't help but think that it would have been nice if the lame duck session's efforts had been used to repeal DOMA, or address any of the other relationship recognition issues that are still facing the United States. The ability to serve and die for one's country is important, but the ability to have one's love for others be acknowledged by the state, and granted equal privileges and rights (such as inheritance, hospital visitation rights, etc) would be even better. And that's without even getting into the host of issues related to challenging the sexual conservatism of the US.

Nonetheless, this is a victory, and should be acknowledged as such!

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It Gets Better Project - Visibility and Affirmation

By now, you have probably heard of the It Gets Better Project, a YouTube campaign of videos launched by Dan Savage in September 2010 to raise awareness of gay bullying and to provide support and hope for young people facing harassment. If you haven't already heard about it, Savage and his partner Terry launched the campaign in response to a wake of gay teen suicides, in the hopes that he, and those who would make similar videos, could provide the message that if teenagers held on, their lives would eventually get better. It's a very simple, direct message, and one that has inspired thousands of people to record and post their own messages.

The campaign is not without its detractors. A columnist in Toronto's Xtra! accused the campaign of vastly oversimplifying the issues facing the queer community, and perhaps facilitating complacency or sidestepping the real social challenges facing gay and lesbian youth that require new policies and programs. Musician Owen Pallett observed that for him there were other issues, most notably clinical depression, that would not simply get better on their own. Many have been openly critical of senior US administration figures, such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who participated in the campaign, but have done little to take advantage of their political power to make meaningful changes.

For what it's worth, I tend to come down on the side of those who praise the campaign as just one piece in a larger campaign of social activism, and one that can work alongside and in conjunction with campaigns for political, legal and social change.

Which brings me (finally) to the main point of this post. Many of my gay and lesbian friends, and I am not an exception to this rule, have observed that when they watch these videos, they tend to get really emotional and teary-eyed. And that's not a sentiment which is limited to those who felt suicidal or attempted suicide as teenagers - it's a much broader phenomenon. For me, it's not unlike the feelings that I had at my first few Pride parades as a young man just coming out of the closet. It invokes a sense of community, of shared experience, of support, and also of joy at having been able to make it through the difficult coming out process and accept one's sexuality. And to my view, that speaks to a much broader and more subtle impact of the It Gets Better project. Because while the immediate message is targeted at those facing harassment, in many ways this is an echo of 1970s (and later) gay liberation messaging about the need for visibility, for having large numbers of open gay men and lesbians to create a sense of community, and to raise awareness of their existence among the greater population.

I've been really enjoying some of the new "second wave" videos that are being created by workers in organizations like Pixar because of how it puts a human face on co-workers at an organization. I also liked this Canadian group video of celebrities, politicians and artists for the impact it had of a whole group of reasonably high-profile gay and lesbians all telling their stories at once. That latter video probably had its greatest impact because of Rick Mercer's openness about his experiences. Mercer is a household name in Canada, but few outside the gay community really were aware that he's gay, despite how candid he has been. And that's one of the impacts that the homemade videos are having as well by putting a very diverse human face on gay and lesbian life - young, old, married, single, from a host of different religious and ethnic backgrounds. It's almost like the story-telling complement to a Pride March, where all the diversity that you see briefly in the parade gets a chance to tell their human stories, so that you can hear from the gay father, the dyke on a bike, the leatherboy, the drag queen, and the politician in their own words about what growing up gay or lesbian was like, and how their lives are now. They are everyday role models from all walks of life, which is really important not only for youth, but for adults who continue to struggle with homophobia (both internalized and in the world around them) in their daily lives.

The fact that, like Pride Parades, the It Gets Better Project is attracting such high-profile support from politicians, celebrities and straight allies is indicative of the impact that it is having in raising visibility of these issues. I think it's a good thing that high profile British, American and Canadian politicians think they need to participate in this movement. But moreoever, to me it suggests that, although the legal and political campaigns are far from over, there is a real need to spend more time on the social side of raising the visibility of the human face of gay and lesbian life in order foster more grassroots support in our broader communities for the political, social and legal changes that are also needed.

Kudos to Dan Savage for launching this initiative. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get a box of Kleenex and watch a few more videos.

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DADT: Courts do what Obama is afraid to

A judge, ruling on a case brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, has ruled the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy unconstitutional, stating that the policy violates both the First and Fifth amendments.

I'm glad to see that this decision has come down from the courts. But it would have been a lot more impressive had President Obama himself had the strength of character and the balls to make this an executive decision, followed by an act of Congress, over a year ago.

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Adventures in homophobia - Japanese Edition

Yes, my blogging has been light recently - chalk it up to marking season. And this post isn't even about Canadian politics. It's about my upcoming trip to Japan, and how I sometimes forget how good we gays have it in Canada. I recently had a rather shocking experience involving a hotel booking in Tokyo, which demonstrates that homophobia is alive and well, and running hotel management in some Japanese companies.

Based on the recommendations of Lonely Planet, back on March 8, we booked a 5 night stay at the Sutton Place Hotel Ueno, a business hotel in downtown Tokyo. We booked a room with a double bed, described on the hotel website as suitable for 1-2 people. On the online form, we indicated that 2 males would be sharing the room. So far, so good. We thought we were set for accommodations during one of the busiest travel seasons in Japan (Golden Week, which features 4 national holidays in the span of 7 days).

Two days ago, I received a reconfirmation email from the hotel. In this email, they indicated that the room I had booked was:"not for 2 male guests. Suitable for couples or 2 females only. We recommend you to change it to a twin bed room or 2 single bed rooms. Your cooperation and understanding is sincerely appreciated." By this point, all of the hotel's twin rooms were booked, so we were being asked to book a second room - and to sleep apart while on vacation!

Thinking perhaps that this was the hotel's way of trying to avoid our discomfort, I replied that we were, in fact, a married couple, and used to sharing a bed. The hotel replied with the exact same reply. Apparently married couples, or two "lady travelers" (or two lesbians, as my sister chortled with glee) can share a bed in this hotel, but not two gay men (or two straight men trying to save on accommodations in a rather expensive city).

We booked another hotel room, at a place which explicitly replied to my query that they had no trouble with us sharing a bed. I sent an angry cancellation message to the Sutton Place, indicating my anger both at their no-room-sharing policy and at their appalling customer service, which left us high and dry less than a week before we were scheduled to arrive. The epilogue to this story is that 24 hours after sending the cancellation message, the hotel sent me an email indicating that they would make an exception to their rule because of the poor customer service (although standing by their basic policy). We have decided to stick with the other hotel, which treated us well, rather than spend an awkward 5 nights at a hotel that didn't want us.

The irony of all of this is that Lonely Planet touted the fact that, apart from Thailand, Japan is one of the best places to visit for gay travelers, since there are no laws against homosexuality. Meanwhile, on a trip to Malaysia four years ago, where homosexuality is actually illegal, we had no trouble staying in rooms with only one bed in two separate hotels. Cultural norms, it would seem, are just as powerful as formal laws, at least at some hotel chains.

I would encourage all of my lesbian readers to visit the Sutton Place Ueno, since they seem to have no trouble with two females sharing a bed. I recognize that this is because the hotel managers likely have no conception of independent female sexuality - but I like the idea of this homophobic hotel being made into a covert lesbian love den. Not that I'm feeling vindictive or anything...

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Thank god for Gay Olympians /or/ Kenney the homophobe

Today's post was originally going to be a reflection on the Olympics, their place in Canada's national consciousness, and the problematic elements of how Canadian identity was portrayed in the closing ceremonies.

Instead, let me take a moment to say how glad I am that Olympic gold medal swimmer Mark Tewksbury came out of the closet after the Sydney Olympics. You see, the Conservative government which oversaw Canada's latest citizenship guide thinks that touting Canada's sporting accomplishments is really important. So much so that you'll find images of at least 5 Olympic and Paralympic athletes in the new Discover Canada guide. What you won't find, however, is any reference to Canada's acceptance of same-sex marriage, or mention of the fact that homosexuality was decriminalized forty years ago. That's because Immigration Minister Jason Kenney overrode the advice of his officials, and explicitly removed those sections from the guide.

Indeed, the only time you'll find the word "gay" in the citizenship guide is in the caption under Tewksbury's smiling face. Because in the eyes of our Conservative overlords, the fact that Canada wins medals at the Olympics matters. The fact that Canada treats our gay and lesbian citizens with respect and dignity should be hidden from prospective immigrants.

Perhaps later this week I'll feel up to comment on the mass parading of our national insecurities that passed for the closing ceremonies. Right now, I'm just too pissed off.

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The power of language

I'm currently teaching a graduate seminar on the history of social movements in North America. This week, one of the issues we discussed was the power of language, and the ways that members of social movements and those who oppose their objectives have learned how to use key phrases to mobilize public support.

With that in mind, this report from CBS news is highly illustrative of this point. Fully 14% more of Americans surveyed are willing to allow "gays and lesbians" to serve openly in the military than would support "homosexuals" being allowed to do so. It's a difference between a solid majority opinion in support (58% support) and a bare plurality (44% support vs 42% opposed).

Mind you, it's also disappointing that fully such a large percentage of the American population is opposed to gay men and lesbians serving in the military, no matter what they are called. But it does speak strongly to the powerful issue of messaging and the careful use of language. As John Aravosis points out, "homosexual" evokes cold, clinical connotations of disease, while "gays and lesbians" brings to mind living, feeling human beings - which is what we are!

[ETA: Hmmm... that got a bit earnest and treacly at the end. Don't worry - the hard-edged cynicism will return shortly!]

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Canada Border Services - Arbitrary Censors Gone Wild

Canada Border Services is up to its old nasty tricks again, seizing gay films destined for Ottawa's gay & lesbian Inside Out film festival. All three films have been shown in Canada before, and two of them are rated PG. But CBSA is insisting that it pre-screen all three films, a process they indicate may take up to 4 days - the films were slated to be viewed this weekend.

This sort of arbitrary censorship has been going on at CBSA for decades. Years ago, when I was on the board of the Making Scenes film festival (Ottawa's previous queer film festival), we held a screening of the documentary "Little Sisters, Big Brother", which tracked the decade-long efforts of the Little Sisters bookstore in Vancouver to fight against Canada Customs (now CBSA) seizure of its books. The courts sided with the bookstore. Back in the 1970s and early 80s, Canada Customs used to black out information pertaining to safe sex information because it was deemed pornographic - a thoroughly appalling practice in the early days of the AIDS crisis. Gay and lesbian bookstores and festivals face this issue all the time, and have ongoing troubles covering legal costs associated with gaining the release of their materials.

It's ridiculous that bookstores and film festivals are still having to go to court to have these materials released - and doubly so when the materials have already been shown in this country! Small, volunteer-run festivals don't have the resources for legal challenges; they can barely afford to pay for a part-time staff member. When their financial lifeblood - the films they screen - is seized, they risk financial ruin.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that sanity will prevail and that the festival pulls through. But given past experience with CBSA, I'm not counting on it.

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My organs, like my blood, are no longer mine to give

Health Canada has apparently decided that gay men are no longer eligible to be organ donors if they have had sex with another man in the past five years. It depresses me to learn that rather than switching the also-prejudicial policy against gay men in use by Canadian Blood Services to focus on risky sexual behaviour, Health Canada is instead going to use sexual orientation as an all-encompassing black list. The manner in which this policy will be implemented, as Queer Liberal points out, will also be deeply flawed, relying as it does on families of gay men to know about their sexual histories.

For a few more posts on the blood ban, see this post by Slap Upside the Head and this post from over a year ago.

Welcome to 2008.

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Tidbits of interest for Canadian gays

Just over three years ago, my husband and I signed the necessary paperwork to make our marriage legal in Canada. We had held a ceremony with friends and family a year earlier, just before the Canadian court rulings started to come down, but had been waiting until Parliament had passed legislation before we took the steps to make it legal. During the 2004 election campaign, we decided it might be best to go ahead anyways, just in case the Conservatives won.

According to Statistics Canada's report on the census that was released today, our decision has put us in an elite group (or at least so I'd like to think - grin!) of 0.6% of the country's population that declared that they were in a same-sex married couple. We like to think that we're doing our little part to reinvigorate and perhaps rework the institution of marriage. Mind you, with less than 50% of the Canadian adult population listing their status as married, the first time this has been the case since the census was first held, I'm sure that someone will soon be arguing that it's "us gays" who have undermined the institution.

There has also been much hubbub about the decision of Stephen Harper to prorogue Parliament, and speculation about whether this will lead to a new election. Frankly, I'm more interested in the pieces of legislation that were effectively killed (click the link for "Government says it won't reintroduce Clean Air Act"), left to die on the order paper. If an election is called, Alberta, BC and Ontario won't get those extra seats they were hoping for with Bill C-56 (Expanding House Seats Bill) dead. But on a brighter note, Vic Toews' regressive Bill C-22, the Age of Sexual Protection Bill, is also dead. I found this bill particularly objectionable as it did nothing to eliminate the blatant discrimination against gay sex from Canada's Criminal Code, leaving the age of consent for anal sex at age 18 (despite court rulings in Ontario that this is unconstitutional), while raising the age of consent for other sexual acts to 16.

Now that my courses are back in swing, and an Ontario election is in the offing, I'll try to post a bit more often. I've been a bad blogger this summer, but I like to think that it's been in a good cause.

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Montreal vs ROQ: Homophobia in the Quebec Election

Last week, it was his cocaine use, this week, it's his homosexuality. Sadly, the issue that I predicted would dog André Boisclair on the campaign trail has indeed come up, raised by a shock-jock radio host in the Saguenay, where another openly gay candidate, Sylvain Gaudreault, is running for the PQ in Jonquière.

For a campaign which started off nasty, things just seem to be getting worse and worse, and the main beneficiary of the turmoil appears to be the ADQ, which is making huge gains in Quebec City and the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region, if you believe the polls.

My read on this isn't that it's the fact that Boisclair is gay that is the central issue. As Chantal Hébert has pointed out in her new book French Kiss, which I started devouring last night, it's the fact that Boisclair is so emblematic of urban Montreal, and by extension, so appears the PQ. As we saw in the last federal election, Canadian politics appears to increasingly be reflecting a split in political (and social) values along urban-rural lines. In Quebec, this is why we see the issues of multiculturalism (or interculturalism, as it's called there), and sexuality being used as wedge issues.

Progressive Canadians should be very concerned about this trend. Rural and small-town Canada is better represented in the legislatures on a per-capita basis than the cities are, and those discontented voices will be able to flex their muscle if a) we leave the distribution of seats as it currently stands, and b) more effort isn't made to spread progressive values in smaller communities.

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Homophobia in the Hill - Richmond, that is

Slap Upside The Head has an interesting post up this morning about the banning of a Gay-Straight Alliance Club at Richmond Hill High School.

This story caught my attention for a number of reasons. First off, I find it astonishing that a Canadian public high school is banning a Gay-Straight Alliance, seemingly in the name of fear of offending parents of specific ethnic and religious origins. It doesn't surprise me that my own Toronto-area high school didn't have such a group. We were part of the Catholic school board, and the gay teenagers there had our own clubs - they were called the newspaper and the yearbook. But for the nondenominational public board to ban such a group in 2007, when gay marriage is legal, is stunning.

This also has personal resonance for me. My husband was a gay teenager at Richmond Hill High School a decade ago. One would have thought that we might have made some progress over the past decade in this respect, but apparently not. Certainly, Ontario Education Minister Kathleen Wynne seems to think that this was a place where progressive values had a place when she was part of the women's liberation club at that institution.

RHHS has some illustrious membership in the Progressive Bloggers community. Liberal blogger extraordinaire Jason Cherniak is also an RHHS graduate. Any thoughts, Jason?

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The Liberals need to clean house in Toronto

First off, I'm thrilled that the Conservative motion to re-open the same-sex marriage debate was soundly defeated, by a margin of 175 to 123.

I am less happy about the fact that 14 Liberals voted in favour of the Conservative motion. I am horrified that 8 of these MPs represent Toronto ridings: John Cannis, Roy Cullen, Jim Karygiannis, Derek Lee, John McKay, Dan McTeague, Alan Tonks and Tom Wappel. Aren't Canada's cities supposed to be the bastions of progressive voters? These are easy Liberal seats, and yet the party continues to allow these conservative troglodytes to run there under their party's banner.

It's time for some house-cleaning, M. Dion. MPs who can't be counted upon to support Charter rights have no business running for your party, if you're serious about having the Liberals be the party of the Charter.

Finally, kudos to the Conservative MPs who broke party ranks to support equal rights for all Canadians!

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Grandfathering the gays isn't good enough

There's a little bit of fun alliteration for a Tuesday morning! But my title speaks to the government motion to be introduced in the House of Commons today:

“That this House call on the government to introduce legislation to restore the traditional definition of marriage without affecting civil unions and while respecting existing same-sex marriages.”

As tempting as I might find it to be part of an exclusive cohort of married gay couples in Canada, this resolution is odious, and should be soundly defeated. Moreover, I would strongly urge Stéphane Dion to whip the caucus on this vote. I supported the NDP decision to do so on Bill C-38, and I think the Liberals need to follow the same path if they are to have credibility on this issue in the next election. And if this drives out the Tom Wappels and Dan McTeagues from the party, so much the better. The social conservative wing of the party is long overdue for a swift kick in the pants - possibly right out the door.

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Preserving equal marriage - how to contact your MP

Since Stephen Harper is apparently keeping his election promise to hold a "free" vote on re-opening the debate over same-sex marriage, I would encourage any supporters of same-sex marriage, or even those who think that it is time for the Canadian government to move on to more pressing issues, to contact their MP and let them know how you feel. As someone who has been legally married to my husband for two-and-a-half years, I personally find it abhorrent that MPs might vote to try to undo the legal rights (and obligations) that we have won.

Two useful websites that have been tracking this issue, and have handy links to your MPs email address are Canadians for Equal Marriage and MarriageVote.ca. MarriageVote has also been tracking the voting intentions of each MP, so you can find out whether your MP is in favour of same-sex marriage, strongly opposed, or waffling and could be convinced one way or the other. Here in my own neck of the woods, North Nova MP Bill Casey is apparently on the fence.

You can be certain that all MPs are being bombarded with anti-same-sex marriage emails from members of organizations like Focus on the Family. A quick personal email message appreciating their past support for same-sex marriage, or urging them to change their vote might be somewhat useful in changing a few minds.

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