When Homosexuality = Death

In Canada. In the past.

In 1859, offences punishable by death in Canada included: murder, rape, treason, administering poison or wounding with intent to commit murder, unlawfully abusing a girl under ten, buggery with man or beast, robbery with wounding, burglary with assault, arson, casting away a ship, and exhibiting a false signal endangering a ship.

Before 1859, Canada relied on British law to prosecute sodomy. In 1859, Canada repatriated its buggery law in the Consolidated Statutes of Canada as an offense punishable by death. Buggery remained punishable by death until 1869. A broader law targeting all homosexual male sexual activity ("gross indecency") was passed in 1890. Changes to the criminal code in 1948 and 1961 were used to brand gay men as "criminal sexual psychopaths" and "dangerous sexual offenders." These labels provided for indeterminate prison sentences. Most famously, George Klippert, a homosexual, was labelled a dangerous sexual offender and sentenced to life in prison, a sentence confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada. He was released in 1971.

Canadian law now permits anal sex by consenting parties above the age of 18, provided no more than two people are present. The bill repealing Canada's sodomy laws achieved royal assent on June 27, 1969. The bill had been introduced in the House of Commons by Pierre Trudeau^[10], who famously stated that "there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" ^[11]. In the 1995 Ontario Court of Appeal case R. v. M. (C.), the judges ruled that the relevant section (section 159) of the Criminal Code violated section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when one or both of the partners are 16 to 18 years of age; this has not been tried in court again.

A similar decision was made by the Quebec Court of Appeal in the 1998 case R. v. Roy.

Which originated from British, not French law.

In Reformation England and France, Protestants and Catholics hurled accusations of homosexuality at one another. Although homosexuality was largely ignored in England until the seventeenth century, burnings continued in France. Still, several monarchs and many aristocrats were perceived by their contemporaries as having same-sex relationships, including Kings Henry III and Louis XIII, Philippe d'Orleans, and four of Louis XIV's generals. As for England, Crompton argues, against many biographers, that James I and William of Orange had male favorites. After William's reign, however, toleration of homosexuality decreased in England and hangings became more and more frequent. Meanwhile, French Enlightenment thinkers began to question state enforcement of church-based morality and whether “victimless” crimes should be prosecuted at all. The 1791 Code Pénal de la Révolution made no mention of sodomy, making France the first western European nation to decriminalize homosexuality.

Pennsylvania, 1786. In a sweeping liberalization of the legal system, the state of Pennsylvania removed capital punishment for many crimes including burglary, robbery, sodomy, and buggery (in Pennsylvania at the time, "buggery" referred to sex with animals). These formerly capital crimes had their sentences reduced to the forfeiture of all property and a period of servitude not to exceed 10 years.

Pennsylvania's enthusiasm for legal reform came from an abhorrence of the English legal code which legislators felt was forced on the colonies before the American Revolution of 1776. In an effort to cast off the legal vestiges of British rule, they began a movement toward legal reform that led to the elimination of capital sentences for most crimes.

"Buggery, sodomy" male rape by any other name, in Canada was a capital offense. To be a poof, a queer, a three dollar bill, a fairy, a faggot, etc. was to be destined for the gallows. And it was no less a social and moral offense to decent society when the death penalty was finally removed.

Everett George Klippert (1926 - 1996) was the last person in Canada to be arrested, charged, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for homosexuality before its legalization in 1969; the reforms which led to Canadian legalization of homosexuality were a direct result of the Klippert case.

Klippert, a mechanic in the Northwest Territories, was first investigated by police in connection with an arson in 1965. Although he was not found to have had any connection with the fire, Klippert voluntarily admitted to having had consensual homosexual sex with four separate adult men. He was subsequently arrested and charged with four counts of "gross indecency".

A court-ordered psychiatrist assessed Klippert as "incurably homosexual", and Klippert was sentenced to "preventive detention" (that is, indefinitely) as a dangerous sexual offender. Klippert appealed to the Court of Appeal for the Northwest Territories; his appeal was dismissed. He then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada; his appeal was dismissed in a controversial 3-2 decision.

The day after Klippert's conviction was upheld, New Democratic Party leader Tommy Douglas invoked Klippert's name in the Canadian House of Commons, stating that homosexuality should not be considered a criminal issue. Within six weeks, Pierre Trudeau presented an omnibus bill (C-150) which, among other things, decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults. The law passed, and homosexuality was decriminalized in Canada in 1969.

Klippert, however, remained in prison until July 21, 1971, whereupon he was released. He lived twenty-five more years before his death from kidney disease in 1996.

And this fear, this law, this history remains the basis of homophobia in patriarchal society today. Homophobia is based upon the fear of man penetrating man, as this law shows. It shows that homosexuality was recognized as a sexual / gender reality but at the same time denied as an abberation of the norm. It was specific; buggery = male rape. All homophobia is based on this cultural / social construct.