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Sex, Crime, Pathology: Homosexuality and Criminal Code Reform in Canada, 1949–1969

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

David Kimmel  and
Daniel J. Robinson
David Kimmel
Affiliation:
4464 Marcil Avenue, Montreal (Quebec), Canada H4A 2Z8, [email protected]
Daniel J. Robinson
Affiliation:
Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Middlesex College, University of Western Ontario, London, (Ontario), Canada N6A 5B7, [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper examines legal, political, and social processes culminating in the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada in 1969. While it explores gay activism, international developments, liberalizing social attitudes, and the problem of long-standing anomalies in the Criminal Code, the paper's primary focus is on the re-conceptualization of homosexuality from a legal-criminal paradigm to a medical-scientific one and its impact on eventual decriminalization. In this vein, Foucaultian theory is used to illustrate how advancing psychiatric discourse on homosexuality affected social and legal understandings of same-sex attraction from World War II until the 1970s. As psychiatric and psychological professionals broadened their authority into wider areas of sexual practices and identities, they provided reformers and parliamentarians with an interpretative framework to disassociate homosexuality from criminality. While partially legalized in 1969, homosexuality remained firmly “pathological,” thus entailing a continued, if reconfigured, “governing” presence in some of the nation's bedrooms for years afterwards.

Résumé

Cet article examine les processus légaux, politiques et sociaux qui ont abouti à la décriminalisation de l'homosexualité au Canada, en 1969. Même s'il explore l'activisme gai, les développements internationaux, la libéralisation des attitudes sociales, et les anomalies du code criminel de l'époque, l'article se concentre surtout sur la reconceptualisation de la vision juridico-pénale de l'homosexualité vers une conception médico-scientifique et sur l'impact de ce changement sur l'éventuelle décriminalisation. Dans ce cadre, une approche foucaldienne est employée pour illustrer de quelle façon l'évolution du discours psychiatrique sur l'homosexualité a affecté la compréhension sociale et légale de l'attraction entre personnes du même sexe, de la Deuxième guerre mondiale jusqu'aux années 1970. Alors que psychiatres et psychologues étendaient leur expertise à la zone des pratiques et des identités sexuelles, ils ont fourni aux réformateurs et aux parlementaires un cadre interprétatif de l'homosexualité dissocié de l'aspect criminel. Malgré sa légalisation partielle, en 1969, l'homosexualité demeura longtemps associée à une activité pathologique, nécessitant une présence «gouvernante» continue dans les chambres à coucher de la nation, et ce pendant plusieurs années.

Type
Section: Law and History/Dossier: Droit et histoire
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , April 2001 , pp. 147 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 2001

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68 Cited in “Destaining the (Tattooed) Delinquent Body”, supra note 49 at 569.

69 See Robinson, D.J. and Kimmel, D., “The Queer Career of Homosexual Security Vetting in Cold War Canada,” (1994) 75: 3Canadian Historical Review 319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar [hereinafter “Queer Career”]. For additional sex research articles in the 1960s see, Bond, I.K. and Hutchison, H.C., “Application of Reciprocal Inhibition Therapy to Exhibitionism” (2 July 1960) 83 CMAJ 23Google ScholarPubMed; Jackson, C. C., “The Venereal Esoteric” (29 Sept. 1962) 87 CMAJ 716Google ScholarPubMed; Moore, K. L. & Edwards, C.H.C., “Medico-Legal Aspects of Intersexuality: Criteria of Sex” (1 Oct. 1960) 83 CMAJ 756Google Scholar; Mohr, J.W., “The Pedophilias ; Their Clinical, Social and Legal Implications” (1962) 7: 5CPAJ 255Google ScholarPubMed; Mohr, J. W., “Prison or Hospital - Some Problems in the Relationship Between Criminal Law and Mental Illness” (1964) 9: 2CPAJ 101Google ScholarPubMed; Turner, R.E., “The Sexual Offender” (Dec. 1964) 9: 6CPAJ 533–9Google ScholarPubMed; Neiger, S., “Recent Trends in Sex Research” (1966) 7a: 2Canadian Psychologist 102CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, A. and Captan, J., “Sex-Role Reversal Following Castration of a Homosexual Transvestite with Klinefelter's Syndrome” (1965) 10: 3CPAJ 223–6Google ScholarPubMed; Olson, K.A. and William, , “Reduction of Compulsive Masturbation by Electrical-Aversive Conditioning to Verbal Cues: A Case Report” (1969) 14: 3CPAJ 303Google ScholarPubMed; Cormier, B.M. & Simons, S.P., “The Problem of the Dangerous Sexual Offender” (1969) 14: 4CPAJ 329.Google ScholarPubMed

70 See Cain, R., “Disclosure and Secrecy among Gay Men in the United States and Canada: A Shift in Views” (1991) 2: 1Journal of the History of Sexuality 25–28Google ScholarPubMed [hereinafter “Disclosure and Secrecy”]; ‘An Oscar Wilde Type’, supra note 16 at 102–04. There were important exceptions to these dominant psychiatric views. Alfred Kinsey, disputed the idea that homosexuals were psychopathic personalities: Kinsey, A., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1948).Google Scholar Evelyn Hooker's research further undermined the “illness” model. See Hooker, E., “Preliminary Analysis of Group Behavior in Homosexuals” (1956) 42 Journal of Psychology 217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In this vein, see too Ellis, H., Sexual Inversion: Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: F.A. Davis, 1927).Google Scholar

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75 Ibid. at 43.

76 Ibid. at 101.

77 Privy Council Office (PCO), AIR 897009, Cabinet Minutes, (12 July 1967), 09–1ff [hereinafter POC AIR].

78 The full text of S. 149A(1) reads: “Sections 147 and 149 do not apply to any act committed in private between (a) a husband and his wife or (b) any two persons, each of whom is twenty-one years or more of age, both of whom consent to the commission of the act.” Subsection B clarifies the terms “private” and “consent.”

79 PCO AIR, Cabinet Minutes (5 Dec. 1967), supra note 77 at 09–15; House of Commons Debates (21 December 1967) at 5722.

80 “A bold new program that touches us all” Globe and Mail (23 December 1967).

81 George Bain interview with Trudeau in the Globe and Mail (22 May 1968), cited in Stevens, P. and Saywell, J.T., “Parliament and Politics,” in Saywell, , ed., Canadian Annual Review for 1968 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969) 41.Google Scholar

82 “The Ugliest Smear of All,” Toronto Daily Star (20 June 1968).

83 See the parliamentary remarks of Wooliams, E. and Dumont, B. in House of Commons Debates (23 January 1969) at 4748Google Scholar and (24 January 1969) at 4776–82.

84 For example, see the letter from a Montmagny constituent to MP Adrien Lambert read in parliament by Dumont, Bernard, House of Commons Debates (24 Jan. 1969) at 4778–9.Google Scholar

85 House of Commons Debates (13 February 1969) at 5494; DJ AIR, supra note 29 at 3.

86 DJ AIR, ibid.; Debates, ibid.; “Decriminalizing Homosexuality” supra note 29 at 6.

87 Canada, Commons, Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs in Debates (4 March 1969) at 131–184.

88 Ibid.

89 House of Commons Debates (24 January 1969) at 4809 (D. Orlikow).

90 House of Commons Debates (11 February 1969) at 5391 (R. Kaplan).

91 House of Commons Debates (13 February 1969) at 5495 (R. Lasalle).

92 Canada, House of Commons, Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, in Debates, (25 March 1969) at 657.

93 House of Commons Debates (17 April 1969) at 7634 (J. Turner).

94 House of Commons Debates (21 April 1969) at 7754 (T.M. Asselin).

95 Ibid. (R. Coauette). For more examples of Commons debate equating homosexuality with mental illness see House of Commons Debates (11 February 1969 at 5376, 5413–4; (13 February 1969 at 5476, 5479, 5507–08; (25 February 1969) at 5916; (18 April 1969) at 7697; see also The Regulation of Desire, supra note 6 at 168–71; and Lesbian and Gay Liberation, supra note 37 at 41.

96 See “Governed by Law?”, supra note 9. We thank Bruce Ryder for his insights here.

97 Canada, Report of the Royal Commission on Security (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969) at 36Google Scholar, cited in Lesbian and Gay Liberation, supra note 37 at 43.

98 Ibid. at 32.

99 “Queer Career”, supra note 69 at 333–4. Significantly, Klippert was not released from prison until July 1971, two years after the decriminalization law and six years after the start of his original three-year sentence. Lesbian and Gay Liberation, supra note 37 at 32.

100 The History of Sexuality, supra note 8 at 44; see also The Homosexual(ity) of Law, supra note 19.

101 “Destaining the (Tattooed) Delinquent Body”, supra note 49 at 571–2, 588.

102 Ibid. at 588.