How the police divided Toronto's LGBT community
How the police divided Toronto's LGBT community
- Saunders was there to express his regret, though not to explicitly apologize for, the 1981 raids on four Toronto bathhouses that resulted in the arrests of over 300 men. It was one of the largest mass arrests in Canadian history and was a profound demonstration of the contempt the Canadian state had for gay men at the time. In negotiating his meager, half-hearted expression of regret, Saunders and the Toronto Police Service worked with Brent Hawkes, the senior pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, one of the city’s most respected gay activists and a man who was at that very time facing criminal charges related to sexual assault.
- Saunders was there to express his regret, though not to explicitly apologize for, the 1981 raids on four Toronto bathhouses that resulted in the arrests of over 300 men. It was one of the largest mass arrests in Canadian history and was a profound demonstration of the contempt the Canadian state had for gay men at the time. In negotiating his meager, half-hearted expression of regret, Saunders and the Toronto Police Service worked with Brent Hawkes, the senior pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, one of the city’s most respected gay activists and a man who was at that very time facing criminal charges related to sexual assault.