the fight for justice
The LGBTQ community has faced a long difficult struggle for equality before the law and justice. Key moments in the history of the LGBTQ community include the sentencing of Everett Klippert as a dangerous offender simply for admitting to having consensual gay sex in the 1960s. Klippert who is now being considered for a posthumous pardon by the current Trudeau government was convicted on the same charge as Brent faces - gross indecency.
Everett Klippert, sentenced to life in prison simply for having gay sex
The LGBTQ has also faced many other challenges including the Bath House Raids in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the fight against government censorship (e.g., Little Sisters), the need to protect our community against violence, and the Pussy Palace raid and charges in 2000. In these and other incidents members of the LGBTQ have been targeted by police and the criminal justice system for discriminatory treatment.
Donald Marshall, Jr., wrongly convicted in Nova Scotia
But it's not just the LGBTQ community that has faced discriminatory treatment. We recognize that other groups such as visible minorities, women, natives and others have often received unfair treatment by our legal and criminal justice systems. In Nova Scotia, for example, Donald Marshall, Jr., a Mi'kmaq man was falsely sentenced for murder and spent 11 years in jail. We have seen an epidemic of murdered and missing Indigenous women ignored - and the list goes on.
Images related to Early Gay Pride, Bath House Raids, Little Sister censorship, Alan Turing, Pussy Palace defendants.
