Days after submitting last week’s post, we made an exciting discovery among the CLGA’s holdings. We found an original working draft of “We Demand” covered in hand-written edits. As discussed in our previous blog, this historic document tabled to government a set of requested legal and policy reforms that were widely publicized to insert them the public’s conscience. Without these reforms gays and lesbians could be, and often were, denied their equal rights. “We Demand” served as the blueprint for Canadian LGBT activism during its formative years in the 1970s.
Finding the “We Demand” draft was akin — in our minds at least — to finding a working prototype of the American Constitution with scribbled revisions by its author, James Madison. Adding to our excitement was the fact that the document is not listed in the archive’s database. Its existence has only now come to light because we stumbled upon it. As explained in a previous blog, the CLGA has a large backlog of material waiting to be catalogued (see December blog “Rediscovering Hidden Lives”).
Brian Waite cosigned a letter that accompanied “We Demand” when it was first submitted to the federal government. He was a founding member of Toronto Gay Action, one of Canada’s earliest gay and lesbian rights organizations. He was one of the first to articulate the need to pursue a human rights strategy as part of the gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements. Waite provides an exceptional example, as discussed in last week’s blog, of the skill with which activists of that era rose above a miasma of bigotry to challenge a widely accepted script of intolerance and expose the puerility and poverty of thinking inherent in its vocabulary.
Waite’s oratorical skills, in particular, demonstrated his talents for delivering a hard-hitting and persuasive challenge to the unabashedly homophobic. In the same box where we discovered the “We Demand” draft, we found a transcript of a riveting exchange between Waite and radio announcer Dick Smyth on CHUM radio. Two days after a rally on Parliament Hill in 1971 to publicize the contents of “We Demand,” Smyth broadcast the following on Toronto’s airwaves:
The entire gay liberation movement is based on the false assumption that homosexuality has some redeeming or positive aspect to it. It is negative and unproductive. It is a mental and sexual aberration. … Like alcoholics, homosexuals are sick people who indeed do need help — not the help of lawyers and politicians but that of doctors and psychiatrists.”
Waite pressed for and, remarkably, received an opportunity to go on Smyth’s show a few days letter to rebut the radio announcer’s comments. With Smyth sitting by his side, Waite let rip the following:
Homosexuals, Mr. Smyth, like all other human beings, are worthy of love, respect, and dignity simply because of their humanity. … Your attempt to force homosexuals into a position where they would feel compelled to renounce ‘alcoholics,’ ‘lepers,’ and ‘lunatics’ as some sort of ‘sub-human’ is even more repulsive. All human beings are worthy of respect, and should not be degraded. Yes, indeed we are in favour of their civil liberties as we are for all Canadians.
Spine tingling stuff!
Waite’s confident wrap up was truly prescient. Indeed, people did unite and eventually managed to make the “We Demand” dream largely a reality. Nevertheless, as he later cautioned, and as still stands true for many today, “Winning [a human rights strategy] will not end our oppression, but in the process of fighting for it many gay men and women will develop a higher level of pride and consciousness. With a victory, thousands more will find it easier to come out … without fear.”
Finding the “We Demand” draft was akin — in our minds at least — to finding a working prototype of the American Constitution with scribbled revisions by its author, James Madison. Adding to our excitement was the fact that the document is not listed in the archive’s database. Its existence has only now come to light because we stumbled upon it. As explained in a previous blog, the CLGA has a large backlog of material waiting to be catalogued (see December blog “Rediscovering Hidden Lives”).
Brian Waite cosigned a letter that accompanied “We Demand” when it was first submitted to the federal government. He was a founding member of Toronto Gay Action, one of Canada’s earliest gay and lesbian rights organizations. He was one of the first to articulate the need to pursue a human rights strategy as part of the gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements. Waite provides an exceptional example, as discussed in last week’s blog, of the skill with which activists of that era rose above a miasma of bigotry to challenge a widely accepted script of intolerance and expose the puerility and poverty of thinking inherent in its vocabulary.
Waite’s oratorical skills, in particular, demonstrated his talents for delivering a hard-hitting and persuasive challenge to the unabashedly homophobic. In the same box where we discovered the “We Demand” draft, we found a transcript of a riveting exchange between Waite and radio announcer Dick Smyth on CHUM radio. Two days after a rally on Parliament Hill in 1971 to publicize the contents of “We Demand,” Smyth broadcast the following on Toronto’s airwaves:
- “The prospect of a group of homosexuals prancing about Parliament Hill in a demonstration for equality not only repels and repulses me, it makes me wonder if perhaps it’s all an insane nightmare from which I will return to reality. The prospect is about as savoury as a demonstration for equality and acceptance by militant alcoholics, militant lepers, or militant lunatics.
The entire gay liberation movement is based on the false assumption that homosexuality has some redeeming or positive aspect to it. It is negative and unproductive. It is a mental and sexual aberration. … Like alcoholics, homosexuals are sick people who indeed do need help — not the help of lawyers and politicians but that of doctors and psychiatrists.”
Waite pressed for and, remarkably, received an opportunity to go on Smyth’s show a few days letter to rebut the radio announcer’s comments. With Smyth sitting by his side, Waite let rip the following:
- “Dick Smyth’s recent editorial on homosexuals and gay liberation is disgusting. That he can, through a public medium, endeavour to influence the minds of his listeners with such vindictive, narrow-mindedness and ignorance is almost incomprehensible. His views on homosexuality are bigoted and chauvinistic; the same type of views that have produced the worst eras of oppression and brutality in man’s history.
Homosexuals, Mr. Smyth, like all other human beings, are worthy of love, respect, and dignity simply because of their humanity. … Your attempt to force homosexuals into a position where they would feel compelled to renounce ‘alcoholics,’ ‘lepers,’ and ‘lunatics’ as some sort of ‘sub-human’ is even more repulsive. All human beings are worthy of respect, and should not be degraded. Yes, indeed we are in favour of their civil liberties as we are for all Canadians.
- Nor do homosexuals need psychiatrists and doctors to remedy their problem; we need lawyers and politicians, for the root of our problem is the narrow-mindedness and prejudice, like yours Mr. Smyth, which results in the oppressive legislation which we are trying to change. The day of the homosexual ‘scapegoat’ is over. Homosexuals are uniting all over Canada, and we are serving notice that we will no longer tolerate the type of abusiveness reflected in Mr. Symth’s editorial. Whatever the action necessary, we will take it until the day of our freedom and equality is realized.”
Spine tingling stuff!
Waite’s confident wrap up was truly prescient. Indeed, people did unite and eventually managed to make the “We Demand” dream largely a reality. Nevertheless, as he later cautioned, and as still stands true for many today, “Winning [a human rights strategy] will not end our oppression, but in the process of fighting for it many gay men and women will develop a higher level of pride and consciousness. With a victory, thousands more will find it easier to come out … without fear.”