February 28 Vancouver The first […]

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When

1975-02-28

Description

February 28 Vancouver The first public hearing in Canada of a gay civil rights case under provincial human rights legislation was held at the Hotel Vancouver. The case involved GATE (Vancouver)'s complaint against the Vancouver Sun that the paper's refusal to print a two-line classified ad for Gay Tide contravened the British Columbia Human Rights Act. During the hearing, testimony was given concerning Sun publisher Stuart Keate's notion that homosexuality was a "threat to society" and that it was linked to "problems regarding V.D. and crime." On January 12, 1976, the Board of Inquiry, chaired by Vancouver lawyer Joe Wood, ruled that the Vancouver Sun had violated the provincial Human Rights Code; it ordered the Sun to pay GATE $500 in costs and "to refrain from committing the same or similar contraventions of the Code in future." GATE organized a victory picket of about fifty people outside of the Sun's Pacific Press Building. On July 16,1976, the Sun appealed the ruling to the B.C. Supreme Court, but in August the court rejected the appeal and upheld the Board's ruling. On June 10,1977, the ruling was overturned by the B.C. Court of Appeal, GATE (Vancouver) took the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, making it the first lesbian and gay rights case ever to make it to the highest court in Canada. On May 22,1979, in a six to three decision, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal of GATE (Vancouver), ruling that freedom of the press allowed the Sun "reasonable cause" to refuse the ad. The Sun eventually changed its ad policy, however, and printed a classified ad for Gay Tide on November 17, 1979.