May 4 Toronto A community forum […]

Graph

When

1972-05-04

Description

May 4 Toronto A community forum entitled "Homosexuality: Myth and Reality," held at the St. Lawrence Centre Town Hall, was disrupted when two members of the right-wing group Western Guard (formerly the Edmund Burke Society) sprayed the crowd of 450 people with tear gas. The meeting was sponsored by CHAT. The two members of the Western Guard were later found guilty of spraying a volatile substance and were sentenced to sixty days in jail. The same evening, someone attempted to firebomb a house next door to CHAT'S Community Centre on Cecil Street. The intended target was probably the CHAT centre. Indeed, the next night someone threw a Molotov cocktail through a window into the Centre; the resulting fire was quickly extinguished.

All Places

CHAT Centre Saint Lawrence Centre Town Hall Toronto

All Organizations

Community Homophile Association of Toronto CHAT Edmund Burke Society, Western Guard

All Citations

"Western Guard in Jail," Body Politic, no. 6 (1972), p. 11."Tear Gas Spray Disrupts Meeting on Homosexuality," Toronto Star, Four star ed., 5 May 1972, p. 27;Becki L. Ross, The House That Jill Built: A Lesbian Nation in Formation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995). P- 34;J. Proos, "Western Guard Smashes Homosexual Propaganda Show," Straight Talk! (Western Guard, Toronto) 4 (May-June 1972): 4-5;Donald Grant, "Bomb Thrown at Teacher's Home Shatters on Ground and Burns," Globe and Mail, metro ed., 5 May 1972, p. 4;"Fascists Gas Gays," Body Politic, no. 4 (1972), p. 4;

Graph Legend

Saint Lawrence Centre Town Hall

Centre

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