Bowers v. Hardwick In 1986, a case of extreme im-
port to gay and lesbian rights came before the U.S.
Supreme Court. Michael Hardwick had been ar-
rested for sodomy when police found him with a
lover at his own home. He was never actually prose-
cuted under the law, but he was deliberately humili-
ated and harassed by police. Hardwick sued the
state, insisting the law against sodomy was unconsti-
tutional. However, the Supreme Court ruled, in
Bowers v. Hardwick, that the law was acceptable. (That
decision stood until it was overruled in 2003.) Al-
though two states, New York and Pennsylvania, had
declared their own antisodomy laws unconstitu-
tional at the beginning of the decade, other states
were allowed to outlaw sodomy as they saw fit. This
was widely considered to be a setback for gay and les-
bian rights, especially in the area of the right to pri-
vacy, as it meant states could continue criminalizing
homosexual behavior. However, in spite of this sig-
nificant blow, there were some positive signs, as no
new states passed sodomy laws and no such laws that
had been removed were reinstated.
Canada Though events in the United States got
most of the popular press coverage in the 1980’s, gay
and lesbian rights also made steady gains in Canada
throughout the decade. In February, 1981, before
the AIDS crisis, a group of four bathhouses in To-
ronto frequented by gay men were raided. Police ul-
timately arrested more than three hundred gay men
for their sexual orientation. Nearly three thousand
protesters demonstrated against these actions, and
this protest formed the basis of Toronto’s annual
Gay Pride Week. Thus, the raids represented both a
visible sign of the backlash against the gay and les-
bian revolution and, ultimately, a victory for gay and
lesbian rights.
Of even greater significance, in 1982, the Cana-
dian constitution was revised and patriated, and the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms became a central
portion of it. This charter had a strong impact on the
lives of the gay and lesbian community. The charter
did not specifically list sexual orientation as a pro-
tected category of identity, and activists throughout
the decade and beyond fought to have the phrase
added to the document. (In 1996, the Canadian Su-
preme Court declared that freedom from discrimi-
nation based on one’s sexuality was protected by the
charter.) The Canadian military specifically refused
to employ gays and lesbians for many years, and en-
listed homosexuals were removed from the military
throughout the decade if their sexuality was discov-
ered.
Elsewhere in the political realm, in 1986, the
group Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere
(EGALE; later Égale) formed in Canada. The group
became one of Canada’s most active legal groups,
seeking not just to win victories in the courtroom,
but also to offer a support network to the nation’s
GLBT community. In 1986 and 1987, the provinces
of Ontario and Manitoba, as well as the Yukon Terri-
tory, added sexual orientation to their codes of hu-
man rights, making employment, housing, and some
other forms of discrimination against gays, lesbians,
and bisexuals illegal. On the religious front, in 1988,
the United Church of Canada publicly stated that
homosexuals could be ordained.
Impact The Religious Right had an immeasurable
effect on politics in the United States, as it backed
President Ronald Reagan for the entirety of both his
terms as president and gave financial support to
President George H. W. Bush as well. This meant
much of the political power during the decade rested
in the hands of the anti-gay movement. However,
AIDS had the greatest impact on gay and lesbian
rights in the 1980’s. Besides engendering a some-
times violent backlash, it also knit gay and lesbian
rights activists together by giving them a common
cause to fight against just when a schism was begin-
ning in their movement.
Further Reading
Cruikshank, Margaret.The Gay and Lesbian Liberation
Movement. New York: Routledge, 1992. History of
the movement beginning with the Stonewall riots
and moving through the decade of AIDS.
Engel, Jonathan.The Epidemic.New York: Smithso-
nian Books/HarperCollins, 2006. Discussion of
the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and of
AIDS, including their social and political ramifi-
cations. Intertwined with discussion of the GLBT
community in the 1980’s and the effects of the
disease and conservative backlash on, particu-
larly, gay men.
Herman, Didi.Rights of Passage: Struggles for Gay and
Lesbian Legal Equality. Toronto: University of To-
ronto Press, 1994. Examines the legal struggles of
Canadian gays and lesbians in the 1980’s, with the
inclusion of some feminist theory.
Hunt, Gerald.Laboring for Rights: Unions and SexualThe Eighties in America Homosexuality and gay rights 485