This self-portrait, taken in Havelock, New Brunswick, shows the simplicity of the intimacy shared by Leonard Olive Keith (1891-1950) and Joseph Austin “Cub” Coates (1899-1965), who lived and loved in the first half of the 20th century. They were two men in love in Canada when male homosexuality was a crime in Canadian law, and public prejudice against male homosexuality was openly expressed. It was as simple as it is in the present. Some men are romantically and sexually attracted to men. It is a natural expression of human sexual attraction and behaviour. To those who knew and loved them, they were Len and Cub, a homosexual couple. To those who reviled male homosexuals, they were beneath contempt. They were what we call normal gays in the 21st century. Len was a harness racing driver who opened a garage after serving as an engineer in the Canadian Army in World War I. Cub was a mechanic who served as an engineer in the Canadian Army in World War I and volunteered for service in the Canadian Army in World War II. They were ordinary men who had a sense of duty, served their King and country as volunteers in the Great War, and found love and companionship in each other’s company. Despite their discretion, suspicion over their relationship in Havelock drove them apart in the 1920s. Len moved to the United States, where he lived out his days. Cub married in 1940. That fate was not unusual for gay men in Canada in the 20th century.

However, things changed in Canada in the latter half of the 20th century. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau passed, in 1969, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69 (S.C. 1968-69, c. 38), which, among other things, decriminalized male homosexuality. Then, Minister of Justice Pierre Elliott Trudeau, in the government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson, introduced the legislation in parliament in 1967. He famously observed in defending this provision of the bill, “obviously, the state’s responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation.” That was a welcome development, the first step by the Canadian government to recognize that the right to marital privacy applied equally to heterosexual and homosexual couples. It was not until 2005 that the Canadian government passed a law that allowed homosexual couples to marry on an equal basis with heterosexual couples.

A century after Len and Cub were forced to separate because of public prejudice and the threat of criminal sanction for being in a homosexual relationship, men who are romantically and sexually attracted to men are free to live openly and marry. Mika and I have been together for twenty-six years. We only came out in 2012 when we bought a house together and found that the people we knew were happy for us. We are a content couple, no different than any heterosexual couple. Like Len and Cub, Mika and I have jobs–I am retired–but worked in a university library, and Mika works for the federal public service. Like many young men in Canada in the 20th century, I served my Queen and country in the Canadian Army as a reservist in the artillery–out of a sense of duty. We are an ordinary Canadian couple, normal gays, living our best lives.

While what happened to Len and Cub a century ago was sad, their legacy in the photographic record of their relationship serves as an example for homosexual men to follow and a reminder that sometimes, love conquers all. It is also a powerful reminder that then, as now, male homosexuality has nothing to do with the crackpot theorizing about heteronormativity, intersectionality, the patriarchy, racial and gender identity politics, the queer community, and white male privilege. Then, as now, the primary concern for gay men is the right to be left alone as individuals in their pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Gay is a demographic, not a coherent community. Gay men are found in all walks of life. Some are of good character, and others not so much; they are no better or worse than anyone else. There is no need for empathy or allyship from the Woke and its insistence on conflating male homosexuality with “heteronormativity, intersectionality, the patriarchy, racial and gender identity politics, and the queer community, and white male privilege.” If they genuinely cared about the welfare and happiness of homosexual men and boys, they would leave us the hell alone.

Posted by Geoffrey