On this day in 1989, Edmonton city council denied official recognition of gay and lesbian awareness celebrations.
Mayor Terry Cavanagh clearly refused to support a request from the city's gay and lesbian community to declare June 27 as Gay and Lesbian Awareness Day in Edmonton, but was vague about his reasons why. He told the news media that the request wasn't like the usual volunteer groups that had days proclaimed in their honour, and was worried about "how many other groups are going to come along to want a day proclaimed." As an Edmonton Journal writer noted at the time, Cavanagh's explanation didn't quite make sense, given other special days that he had proclaimed, including those honouring cable TV, housekeepers, and coins.
Of course, the mayor's real reason to oppose the request would likely have been more than clear to Edmonton's gay and lesbian community. Nor would it have been a surprise. Cavanagh's denial came at the end of a decade of the community fighting, unsuccessfully, for official city recognition of the event.
Many agree that Edmonton's modern Pride celebrations began in 1980, with a small picnic and campfire that drew about 75 people. In the next year, a gay and lesbian group (which included Michael Phair, who would later become the first openly gay person elected to office in Alberta) entered a craft into the annual Sourdough Raft Race. The boat referenced a gay bathhouse and was dubbed the S.S. Pisces, in protest of a raid Edmonton police conducted on a spa earlier that year which ended in the arrest of more than 60 gay and bisexual men.
By 1984, the event had grown into Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week, a combination of celebrations and protests across the city. It was also the first year that organizers petitioned the city to officially honour the event on June 27. The request was shot down due to "lack of public appeal." A similar request was made the next year and also denied.
The failed 1989 request sparked a protest. Called "Gay Day Anyway", it took place in front of city hall, with actors holding a mock city council meeting. While the 1990 Pride parade wasn't accompanied by any proclamation, the new mayor, Jan Reimer (who had supported the previous request as a councillor), became Edmonton's first mayor to participate in the event. Three years later, she would also be the one to finally make an official proclamation, marking June 26, 1993, as "Gay and Lesbian Pride Day" in Edmonton.
Today, Edmonton's Pride celebrations are very different. June is Pride Month, and there's a Pride Festival weekend in August, all drawing thousands of people to celebrate many queer identities alongside gay and lesbian communities. The Pride Curling Championships were held in the city earlier this month, and there are a couple of events coming up in May drawing attention to Edmonton's queer history.
This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist Rev Recluse of Vintage Edmonton.
Correction: This file has been updated to reflect that June is Pride Month in Edmonton.