[PHOTO] 85-87 Harbord Street

Henry Morgentaler's successful (if controversial) nomination is just another episode in a life full of controversy thanks to his position as Canada's most visible abortion doctor. Some opponents are so upset that they've decided to attack the Chief Justie of the Canadian Supreme Court by lodging a complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council because she supervised the decision.

Toronto's Harbord Street, near the University of Toronto campus, plays an intimate role in his story because his clinic out of 85 Harbord Street in one of the old Victorian row houses that line(d?) that part of the sub-Annex.



Now, in The Globe and Mail's words.

The story of this old Annex Victorian semi, among the storefronts on the south of Harbord, really begins on June 15, 1983, when Henry Morgentaler opened an abortion clinic. It was subjected to protests and pickets, and victories and defeats - for both sides of the debate. The drama might have ended in 1988, when the Supreme Court ruled that freestanding clinics were legal, but the rallies continued, reaching 3,000 strong. Harbord Street Cafe, at No. 87, closed shop, its windows papered over. A sign for The Way Inn took its place. The Toronto Women's Bookstore moved down the street. Then on Victoria Day weekend in 1992, an explosion by arsonists blew the wall out at No. 85. No one was ever charged. A small apartment is there now, next to Ms. Emma Designs at No. 87. Earlier this week, Dr. Morgentaler was named to the Order of Canada.

(85 Harbord Street is small. Look to the left edge of the photo. I thought it was hiding from me at the time I took the photo.)

[LINK] Want a better future for science fiction?

Over at james_nicoll's More Words, Deeper Hole, the author challenges his readers to come up with a science fiction future that a writer could create and his audience could engage with, a future that would be as generically positive as too many futures are negative (the Terminator-verse is probably an extreme example).

[BRIEF NOTE] Homophobias

Via mindstalk I came across the rather horrifying article from the Northwest Florida Daily News "Many support ex-principal in gay rights case".

When a high school senior told her principal that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents and ordered her to stay away from children.

He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students.

The American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the district on behalf of a girl who protested against Principal David Davis, and a federal judge reprimanded Davis for conducting a "witch hunt" against gays. Davis was demoted, and school employees must now go through sensitivity training.

And despite all that, many in this conservative Panhandle community still wonder what, exactly, Davis did wrong.

"We are a small, rural district in the Bible Belt with strong Christian beliefs and feel like homosexuality is wrong," said Steve Griffin, Holmes County's school superintendent, who keeps a Bible on his desk and framed Scriptures on his office walls.

[. . .]

A Wal-Mart worker yelled at [Ardena Gillman, mother of one of the students], accusing her of trying to "bankrupt" the school district, which was ordered to pay $325,000 in ACLU attorney fees. One of her friends has refused to talk to her because the lawsuit conflicted with the woman's religious beliefs.

Others flatly hail Davis as a hero.

"David Davis is a fine man and good principal, and we are a gentle, peaceful, Christian, family-oriented community," said Bill Griffin, 73 and a lifelong Ponce de Leon resident who is no relation to the district superintendent. "We aren't out to tar and feather anyone."

The lawsuit could reflect a division between the high school students who have grown up in an era of gay tolerance and the community's elders, said Gary Scott, a school board member.

"But I think that's less of an issue here than in Miami or Minnesota," he said.

The judge's scathing rebuke left Scott questioning how his community's beliefs could be so different from the judge's opinion.

"I guess I didn't realize we were this bad," Scott said.

Here's to hoping that Scott was serious, I suppose--I'm not doing that.

In the meantime, can any of my Canadian readers identify any particular regions where similar things would be allowed by anyone in charge, if not now then in the recent future. I may well be lacking knowledge of these and I certainly don't think that Canada's intrinsically better than the States, but, well, I think that the influence goes both ways: HIV-infected teacher Eric Smith was driven from his job and the Nova Scotian home of his family for the past few generations by his relatives and neighbours back in 1986. Then again, an article written by a contributor to the Towards a New Maritimes anthology put out after the death of New Maritimes magazine claimed that much of the impetus came from the conversion of many of the islanders to Jack van Impe-style fundamentalism thanks to satellite televsion. Then again, the islanders had to want to convert to this particular of many toxic strains of Christian fundamentalism. Then again, regardless of the precise causes, that potential homophobia did exist there in some form.

Did it where I was, fellow Islanders? Lacking any knowledge whatosever about what things were like on Prince Edward Island in my high school years (1994-1997), within or without high school, my kneejerk reaction is to shudder in relief. Who knows? The socially crippling depression might have been worth it in the end.