The Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives / Materials / Records / Related documents
	Chronology from Flaunting It! 1964-1982
	1980 / Appx 1,150 words

Victories and defeats
A gay and lesbian chronology 1964-1982
1980

January 6 / Toronto

Gay Community Appeal of Toronto is incorporated and begins plans to launch first United Way-type gay fund-raising drive in North America.
[Later renamed the Lesbian and Gay Community Appeal of Toronto; still existing in 1997, it has raised well over $1,000,000 since 1980.]

February 6 / Toronto

Full-page ad in Globe and Mail, supported by over 800 individuals and groups, calls on Attorney General Roy McMurtry to drop appeal of acquittal of The Body Politic. First time an advocacy ad for a gay cause published in Canadian daily.

February 7-8 / Toronto

County Court Judge George Ferguson hears Crown appeal of decision of Provincial Court judge acquitting The Body Politic of charges related to using the mail to transmit immoral and indecent material.

February 29 / Toronto

Judge George Ferguson orders The Body Politic back to Provincial Court to face new trial. TBP decides to appeal.

February / Kingston, Ontario

A Provincial Court judge awards sole custody of ten-year-old daughter to lesbian mother, concludes that proselytizing or copying of sexual patterns were not dangers. Third reported Canadian case of court awarding custody to homosexual parent.

March 13 / Toronto

Association of Gay Electors chooses George Hislop as candidate for Ward 6 aldermanic race in November 1980.
[Hislop had been co-founder and long-time president of the Community Homophile Association of Toronto (see Feb 2, 1971). He was currently under charge as keeper of a common bawdyhouse in the Barracks case (see Dec 9, 1978).]

March 21 / Toronto

Three judges of Divisional Court order fired gay Ontario Provincial Police officer Paul Head reinstated as member in good standing of force (see March 7, 1978). OPP appeals decision.

March 31 / Burlington, Ontario

OPP constable Paul Head is suspended from duty after court orders him reinstated. Given new charge of discreditable conduct.
[Head was later charged, Apr 29, with indecent assault on a 24-year-old man who had not wanted to press charges. The police acted on their own.]

April 2 / Montreal

Municipal Court judge finds owner of Truxx bar guilty of keeping a common bawdyhouse and sentences him to ten days in jail and $5,000 fine (see October 22, 1977).

April 23 / Montreal

Police raid Sauna David, gay bathhouse, and arrest sixty-one men on bawdyhouse charges.

April 26 / Montreal

Large night demonstration takes over streets at Stanley and Ste-Catherine intersection to protest police raid on Sauna David.

April 30 / Winnipeg

Two chain bookstores, Coles and Classics, remove copies of Joy of Gay Sex and Joy of Lesbian Sex from shelves following threats from police that they would lay obscenity charges.

June 2 / Ottawa

Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) ratifies contract which includes non- discrimination clause protecting gay people. First time gay employees of federal government department awarded such protection.

June 21 - July 3 / Montreal

More than ten thousand gay men and lesbians participate in second annual Gairilla Week. Gay celebration awarded grant by organizing committee of Quebec's national holiday, la fête nationale des Québécois.

June 24 / Vancouver

Gay Alliance Toward Equality (GATE), one of Canada's oldest and most active gay rights organizations, announces dissolution.

June 27 - July 1 / Calgary

Celebration '80, eighth annual conference of lesbians and gay men, disbands the moribund Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition. Proposals made to form more limited group aimed at lobbying federal government.
[The lobby group, the Canadian Association of Lesbians and Gay Men (CALGM), was tentatively set up at the conference (see Dec 11, below). The group faded from view by early 1981.]

July 5 / Winnipeg

National convention of Liberal Party of Canada adopts resolution to include sexual orientation in Canadian Human Right Act.

July 31 / Toronto

Toronto Board of Education votes to look into the possibility of setting up a permanent liaison committee between the board and the gay / lesbian community.

August / Halifax

General Council of United Church of Canada, largest Protestant denomination in country, gives approval to "In God's Image... Male and Female," study document which advocates acceptance of gays and lesbians into ministry and which says premarital and extramarital sex are acceptable under certain circumstances.
[At its General Council Aug 7-16, 1984 in Morden, Manitoba, the United Church would decide that "ordination is not a human right." Four years later, at its 32nd General Council, Aug 16-25, 1988 in Victoria, it became (as Xtra reported) "the first mainstream church in the world to accept gay ordination without imposing celibacy."]

September 3 / Toronto

Mayor John Sewell endorses George Hislop, gay candidate for alderman in November municipal election, and causes media uproar about "gay power politics" taking over city hall.

September 9 / Toronto

Metro Council, governing body of greater Toronto area, refuses to pass Metro Bill of Rights which includes sexual orientation, and substitutes weaker declaration about being an equal opportunity employer (see October 10, 1973).

September 15 / Toronto

Subcommittee to look into establishing liaison committee between Board of Education and gay / lesbian community caves into pressure from fundamentalist Christian groups, votes to disband at first meeting.

September 18 / Toronto

Board of Education amends policy to ban discrimination on basis of sexual orientation, but adds clause forbidding "proselytizing of homosexuality in the schools."

October 31 / Toronto

Fort the first time, police do not allow queer-bashers and spectators to congregate outside St Charles Tavern to wait for drag queens. Traffic and pedestrians are kept moving with help of large numbers of police officers. Not a single egg thrown.

November 10 / Toronto

Municipal election sees defeat of first openly gay candidate to run for municipal office in Canada, George Hislop, and of gay-positive mayor, John Sewell. "Gay issue" figures prominently in campaign and brings out flood of anti-gay literature.

November 15 / Vancouver

Michael Harcourt, an alderman consistently supportive of the gay community, is elected mayor. An organization called Gay People to Elect Mike Harcourt campaigned actively in gay community.
[Harcourt would become NDP premier of British Columbia in 1991.]

November 25 / Toronto

Labour Minister Robert Elgie introduces Bill 209, an act to amend the Ontario Human Rights Code, in the Legislature. Sexual orientation is not included.

December 10 / Toronto

[Ontario provincial] NDP leader Michael Cassidy, despite years of lip-service paid to protections for gay people in legislation, says that issue of gay rights "is not a priority at this time." Provincial election in the offing March 19, 1981.

December 11 / Ottawa

Representatives of the Canadian Association of Lesbians and Gay Men (CALGM) appear before Joint Senate / House Committee on the Constitution to argue for inclusion of "sexual orientation" in entrenched Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

December 19 / Ottawa

Justice Minister Jean Chrétien announces proposals to revise Criminal Code to reduce age of consent to 18 years and make other changes in legislation related to sexual offences.