By Tom Hooper

Activists organized a response to the 1981 Toronto bath raids in the streets and in the courts – photo used with permission from Gerald Hannon
Last weekend, we learned that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office is working to pardon Everett George Klippert, a man who was declared a “dangerous sexual offender” in 1965 for committing the crime of gross indecency,” the Criminal Code statute that outlawed gay sex. His conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1967, and was met with criticism by Canadian politicians and the press. Weeks after that decision, then Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau famously declared, “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” By 1969 these words were implemented into law, ensuring that no other gay man like Klippert would be arrested for having consensual gay sex with adults in a private environment. At least, this was the rhetoric.
Trudeau Sr. did not remove gross indecency from the Code, his government merely added a subsection to the law. This change, known as the ‘exception clause,’ meant that gay sex was still illegal in Canada, but it was permissible provided it happened under a strict set of circumstances. According to this exception clause, you were entitled to be ‘grossly indecent’ if the act occurred in private between consenting adults who were at least 21 years old, and provided only two people were present. We can conclude, then, that in 1969, the Liberals only partially decriminalized homosexuality.[1] Continue reading