History of Homosexuality (Part III)

Let me premise this article with the statement that I am a heterosexual and happily married for the past 36 years with two daughters and five grandchildren.

Now I will tell you about homosexuality in other countries other than the USA.

Homosexual behavior between homosexuals has been illegal in most countries for several centuries. It was only in recent decades that a number of nations began to implement legislative reforms which allow for certain consensual homosexual acts.

Canada

The RCMP, (Royal Canadian Mounted Police—federal police) throughout the late 1950s and all of the 1960s, kept tabs on homosexuals and the patrons of gay bars and gay bath houses in cities across Canada. They also worked with the American FBI's own surveillance of homosexuals and alerted the FBI when a suspected Canadian homosexual had crossed the border to the United States.

I remember reading of accounts in newspapers in Toronto of the local police raiding bath houses that were frequented with gay men back in the 1960s. Each raid resulted in homosexuals being arrested.

In 1963, the RCMP Directorate of Security and Intelligence's A-3 Unit (a unit dedicated to rooting out and removing all homosexuals from government and law enforcement.) A-3 itself was a subsection of the A Unit that was dedicated to finding out character flaws in government employees in the aftermath of the Second Red Scare (The Second Red Scare involved communists infiltrating countries after World War II ) The Unit produced a map of Ottawa (Canada’s capital) replete with red dots marking all alleged residences and frequent visitations of homosexuals. However, the map was soon filled with red ink and was disposed, and after two larger maps of the city being used to a similar purpose and the similar outcome, the mapping of homosexual residences soon ended. Perhaps they were also running out of paper.

The following year, Canada saw its first gay-positive organization, ASK, and first gay magazines: ASK Newsletter (in Vancouver), and Gay (by Gay Publishing Company of Toronto). Gay was the first periodical to use the term ‘Gay’ in the title and expanded quickly, including outstripping the distribution of American publications under the name Gay International. These were quickly followed by Two (by Gayboy (later Kamp) Publishing Company of Toronto.

On December 21, 1968, Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau  (later prime minister) introduced an omnibus bill reforming the Criminal Code of Canada, which then liberalized the Canadian law on a number of social issues such as homosexuality, abortion and divorce. Trudeau's characterization was captured in the statement he made in parliament when he said; “There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation” The following year, the Canadian government decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults with the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act.

Despite the legal acceptance of homosexuality in Canada, in 1976, there were Montreal police crackdowns against gay bars in Montreal's Stanley Street gay village, that was widely perceived as mayor Jean Drapeau's attempts to clean up the city in advance of the 1976 Summer Olympics. This led to rioting in the streets. Of course those crackdowns were illegal since it was no longer a crime to be a homosexual.

In October of 1977, two gay establishments in Montreal, Mystique and Truxx, were raided. A protest organized the next day attracted 2,000 participants. By December of that year, the province of Quebec had enough of Mayor Drapeau’s antics so the province became the second jurisdiction in the world, behind only Denmark at that time, to pass a law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. That must have brought a flood of tears of sadness to that fool, Drapeau.

May 10, 1979, in the British Columbia provincial election, Robert Douglas Cook becomes Canada's first openly gay political candidate. He garnered 126 votes in West Vancouver-Howe Sound as a candidate of the Gay Alliance Toward Equality.

On February 5, 1981, four bathhouses in Toronto were raided by the Toronto Police Service in Operation Soap in hopes of finding gays indulging in homosexual acts. Remember it was legal then for gays to participate in homosexual acts as long as it was done in private between consenting adults. More than three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis  The next day, over 3,000 protestors stage a mass demonstration against the raids, blocking traffic at several major intersections. These demonstrations evolved into Toronto's current Pride Week, Canada's  ‘bawdy-house’ law, under which the charges in this raid were laid, has never been repealed, but has only rarely been applied against gay establishments since the trials connected to the 1981 raids ended. Roy McMurtry, the then solicitor general of Ontario said in part;

“The irony of the whole thing was that I had expressed my concern to the chief of police; that it really looked like we were dissolving into a police state. The whole thing looked terrible. Without a doubt, that was one of my most frustrating experiences.”

McMurtry subsequently served as Chief Justice of Ontario and wrote the 2003 decision of Ontario's Court of Appeal in favour of same-sex marriage. On January 20, 1982, Toronto police chief Jack Ackroyd issued a statement that “gay people are entitled to the same rights, respect, service and protection as all citizens” He also said that he recognized them as “legitimate members of the community”. 

This current excerpt from Canada’s official revised Discover Canada citizenship guide depicts what Canada’s official stand is on the rights of homosexuals in Canada.

‘Canada's diversity includes gay and lesbian Canadians, who enjoy the full protection of and equal treatment under the law, including access to civil marriage.’                                                                                                     

However, the Conservative government is reportedly arguing that thousands of same-sex couples who got married in Canada are not legally wed. While speaking in Halifax on January 10th  2012, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his government has no plans of revisiting the issue of same-sex marriage. The issue is currently before a Superior Court in Ontario that is reportedly set to rule on a lesbian couple’s divorce application next month.                                            

United Kingdom                                           

The rights (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the UK have evolved over time. Their rights were non-existent at the time of the formation of the UK, but have increasingly strengthened in support since the decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity between same sex couples from the middle to late 20th century.

 Discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal in housing, employment and the provision of goods and services and Her Majesty's Armed Forces allows LGBT individuals to serve openly. In 2001, the age of consent was equalized to 16 under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Same-sex couples have had the right to adopt since 2002 and to enter into civil partnerships since 2005. The Gender Recognition Act also gave transsexuals the right to change their legal gender. On 16^th of September 2011, the British Government announced plans to start a consultation on Same-Sex Civil Marriage.

Australia

The civil recognition and rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender individuals and couples in Australia have gradually been increasing within the states and territories of that country since the 1970s. Laws regarding sexual activity apply equally to same-sex and heterosexual activity in all Australian states and territories, except Queensland, where there is an unequal age of consent for anal sex. Every state and territory legally recognizes both opposite-sex and same-sex relationships as de facto couples and also legally recognizes lesbian co-mothers as birth parents of children conceived through in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination.

New Zealand                                                                                                              

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have most of the same rights as heterosexuals in New Zealand. This near-equality in the rights of gay men is a relatively recent development since sex between gay men was only decriminalised in 1986.                                                                                                            

At present, the remaining exceptions are the right to adopt children as a couple, and the right to marry. However, New Zealand enacted legislation that permitted civil unions in 2005, which allow couples many of the same rights as married couples. As of September 2012, a private member's bill to legalise same-sex marriage in New Zealand is before Parliament, and is currently at the Select Committee stage.

Other nations

As many as 176 nations around the world have legalized homosexual relations with same sex partners. As many as 75 nations outright forbid any form of homosexual acts to be performed on same sex partners. Their maximum penalties vary from one year to life in prison. The punishments in some countries include corporal punishment and/or death.

History of homosexuality (Part IV) will be the next article and will deal with specific countries that forbid homosexual acts with same-sex partners and what their maximum penalties are.