An address given by Barry Deeprose
at the Opening of the Pride Campaign in 1998.
I feel so privileged to speak at this wonderful occasion, and I thank the Pride Committee for inviting me. The subject of Gay Pride is so broad and daunting that I had some difficulty deciding exactly what I would say, and I am seldom at a loss for words. For many years, however, I must admit that "Gay Pride in Ottawa" was more of a question than a statement, but I am now convinced otherwise.
I was asked to place Pride in Ottawa, the Nation's capital, in something of a historical perspective. It is particularly appropriate to reflect on this just now, a few weeks after Gary Kinsman released his study on the sustained and vicious oppression of gay men and lesbians in purges from the Public Service. I would like to begin with this historical event and examine its affects on Ottawa, on us, and on Pride.
I will begin with a little historical background. The Kinsey Reports of 1948 and 1953 shocked the world with their findings that there were many more gays and lesbians that had ever been suspected. This meant that most were in our midst and were hidden. This fact fed the campaign of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy in the early 1950s whose Unamerican Activities Committee sought to purge the country of communists. A report of the Senate stated that "fear of exposure made homosexuals subject to blackmail for espionage reasons." In 1953 Eisenhower issued an executive order that there were to be no homosexuals in federal jobs. All this despite the fact there were no cases of such blackmail.
The policy toward civilians has softened in the 1970s except for Department of Defence, and we saw what happened when Clinton tried to change the policy in the military. [ The irony of all this is that Roy Cohen (McCarthy's prosecutor), Francis Cardinal Spellman (his supporter), and J. Edgar Hoover, Head of the FBI, (his enforcer) have all been determined to have been gay. ]
Canada also bought into the homosexual as spy theory. For 30 years the Security Service of the RCMP, also known as the Special Branch, operated under the assumption that every gay man and lesbian in Canada was a threat to security. The sole purpose of A-3, the Character Weakness Section, was the identification and dismissal of every gay employee. Indeed, the RCMP became obsessed with seeking out the hiding homosexuals.
Buffoonary aside, this is a story of deep human tragedy. During the 1950 and 1960s most gays were deeply closeted, and when confronted usually left quietly. With no means of redress, they accepted their fate. We know of at least 400 resignations were forced through the threat of exposure. There are records also of suicides and ruined careers.
Even Brian Mulroney stated "...this would appear to be one of the great outrages and violations of fundamental liberties..." Without doubt, the victims of the various purges are owed an apology by the government. The government must acknowledge the wrong doing.
Although these witch-hunts died out in the early 1970s the impact on our community and psyche was powerful and long lasting. The fear and suspicion carried on and had become part of the folklore of the gay subculture, particularly in Ottawa where employees believed that they would be fired because they were gay. Everyone seemed to know someone who had been fired. Fear about not receiving "security clearances" was, even is, pervasive. The whole event had a chilling effect on gay life in Ottawa. An informal lesson was learned, you will be safe if you hide. Of course you will also be powerless, isolated, and shamed. Only later did we learn the opposite lesson, that ironically the more open you are, the safer you are-also the more powerful, the less lonely, and the more proud.
Not surprisingly, the outcome on our community was shame and fear. Just as do individuals, the community went underground. When I arrived in 1975, several years after the actual threat had passed, I was surprised to find weekend queers who were straight-acting, straight-appearing during the week, but headed off to Toronto and Montreal for gay weekends. I also found that many people had two names, a gay name and their real name. The lack of assertion and shame not only put us at risk for violence but caused us to be exploited by a series of straight-owned bars that seemed to open and close with amazing rapidity.
Most gays and lesbians refused to involve themselves in the newly awakening gay pride movement, which began in Ottawa in 1971. It was extraordinary that Gays of Ottawa took seed in this rather barren soil, but it was often seen as a radical fringe and until the mid-eighties that mainstream gays and lesbians grew visible. For many years, in fact, in Ottawa it was believed that men in suits could not liberated gay men. Generally speaking, in those days, indeed, we "walked after midnight" in shame and fear and alone.
Times have changed! As a lesbian stated at a Gay Pride festival in New York, "We aren't where we hoped to be; we aren't where we want to be; but thank God, we are not where we were."
In the last twenty years we have made almost incomprehensible progress for such a young movement.
We have enjoyed a string of successful court challenges. Who would have thought 20 years ago that the Supreme Court would order Alberta to protect gays and lesbians and scarcely two weeks later, the Ontario Court of Appeal would declare the Income Tax Act illegal because it failed to recognise same-sex relationships.
The progress of our community is equally amazing. In Ottawa there were about two bars and Gays of Ottawa in 1975, and now there is a vibrant array of some 60 organisations for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender folk. We have to count as a sign of our success the way the gay community mobilised its forces to fight AIDS at the beginning of the epidemic rather than hiding further. Ironically, CSIS (Canadian Security and Intelligence Service) the successor to the Special Branch of the RCMP has contracted with Pink Triangle Services to present half-day workshops on homophobia. Most recently we have this fabulous Pride Committee placing the city on the Queer Map.
But how do we get to where we still want to be? Winning our rights is one thing, using them is another.
That the rights of the GLB community still remain open to discussion shows us how far we yet must go.
In reflecting on where we want to be, I looked at the stories behind some of our heroes.
I could go on to many other of our heroes, and sometimes I am disappointed that we do not celebrate our heroes more than we do, for their extraordinary acts to personal courage.
It is clear that none of them set out to be crusaders or radicals, but the lesson we learn from these extraordinary people is so simple. It is simply that we must become visible to live our lives fully. This lesson I read so clearly from a very small sign in one of my earliest Gay Pride Marches in New York, it simply stated: "Invisible People have Invisible Rights." Or as Audre Lourde, lesbian poet and philosopher, said, "Your silence will not protect you." Even if those rights are there we must assert ourselves to make them ours.
Here, the personal becomes political. This is where Pride fits in. For me, Pride is Visibility - we cannot be proud and at the same time hide. In Pride, we show the willingness to pursue our freedom through personal risk. Everyone becomes involved in their liberation.
We cannot expect others to fight our battles. Gay liberation is not out there --someone else's fight--it is with each one of us, every day. Sending a cheque, useful as it is, a couple of times a year will not alone get us where we want to be. As stated by Kurt Hiller, one of our pioneers, at the Second Congress for Sexual Reform in 1928, "In the final analysis, justice for you will be the fruit only of your own efforts. The liberation of homosexuals can only be the work of homosexuals themselves." This observation is as true today as it was seventy years ago and for the many years it appeared on the mast-head of The Body Politic. Each and every one of us must come forward and be counted. Pride provides us this opportunity.
As I look at the changes and growth in our community over the last generation, I am struck by the similarity in the development of the community to the development of ourselves as individuals.
In this city, so recently the scene of institutionalised homophobia, it is particularly important to support gay pride. In choosing to be visible, each of us re-enacts the decision and courage of our heroes. Turning out at Pride in a very visible way accomplishes several things:
In Pride, we define ourselves in all our brilliant diversity; without this, we are defined by our oppressors and their treasured stereotypes. We show by our very presence that indeed GAY means "Good as You." And, by the way, for those in our community who carp about the sometimes radical nature of our marchers, I say: "Do not stand on the sidelines complaining, but dare to get out there an add yourself to our rainbow."
In conclusion, in choosing to come out for Pride Week, we re-enact the decisions of our heroes to be counted, to make ourselves visible for who we are. In Gay Pride, the personal becomes the political in a glorious celebration. It is so important that we do that in this city, where there resides a legacy of fear and paranoia despite all our advances. In so doing, we honour our past, but also create our future.
We can only do this, however, in the full light of day. No longer do we walk in shame, in the dark, alone after midnight, but we walk together, in pride, in the full light of the friendly July sun, just as we will walk every day of our life.
Thank you for listening, and Happy Pride.