Queer history milestones

1648: Canada's first gay civil servant is appointed in New France
* A Montreal soldier, sentenced to death for buggery, is taken to
Quebec under church authority where his sentence is commuted to
life * Offered the choice of working as a galley-slave or a civil
servant, the soldier chooses to take the civil service job as the
first executioner for New France * 1869: Canada changes the
sentence for sodomy from death to life imprisonment * 1897: The
Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the first gay liberation
organization, is founded in Berlin by Magnus Hirschfeld * 1933:
Nazis attack the Hirschfeld Institute in Berlin, burning more than
10,000 "un-German" books and countless manuscripts * 1948: A draft
to Canada's revised Immigration Act calls for the exclusion of
"homosexuals, lesbians and persons coming to Canada for immoral
purposes" * 1953: The RCMP begins a homosexual witch-hunt to
identify and dismiss lesbian and gay civil servants for "character
weakness" as they could be "security risks" * 1965: In the course
of investigating a robbery in the Northwest Territories, the RCMP
discover that the victim, Everett Klippert, is gay * He is
convicted of "gross indecency," declared a "dangerous sexual
offender," and sentenced to prison for life * The Klippert case
caused a groundswell of support for legal reform in Canada * 1969:
Canada changes the Criminal Code to legalize sexual acts between
two consenting adults in private over the age of 21 * First meeting
of University of Toronto Homophile Association, Canada's first gay
liberation organization * Police raid New York's Stonewall bar *
1971: First gay rights demonstration on Parliament Hill * 1972:
First police raid on dance held by Front de lib‚ration homosexuel,
Montreal * Gay Pride Week marches held in Toronto, Vancouver,
Montreal, and Ottawa * 1975: In Ottawa, police arrest 18 men,
alleging a "homosexual vice ring" * Gays of Ottawa picket police
station and newspaper office to protest arrests and lurid media
coverage * In Montreal, police raid seven lesbian and gay bars *
1976: In Montreal, police raid bathhouses at least three more times
* Largest gay demonstration to protest pre-Olympic "clean-up" by
police * 1977: Private Barbara Thornborrow goes public to fight her
firing from the Canadian military as a "sexual deviate" * In
Quebec, the National Assembly amends the Quebec Charter of Human
Rights to include sexual orientation * In Toronto, police raid the
Body Politic and lay charges of possession of obscene material *
1978: In Toronto, police raid the Barracks Steambath and charge 23
men * 1979: In Sarnia, lesbians on their way to the Michigan
Womyn's Music Festival are harassed and turned back at the U.S.
border * In Toronto, police raid the bathhouses again * 1980:
Police raid bathhouses in Toronto and Montreal * Large
demonstrations in Montreal * 1981: Police raid bathhouses in
Toronto * 286 men are arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada
since the War Measures Act * Massive demonstrations in Toronto *
1982: Police raid the Body Politic * The courts acquit the
newspaper for the second time * 1985: The Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms comes into effect * EGALE is founded in Ottawa
by Les McAfee and friends *

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