News :: GLBT
Little Gay Bookstore That Fought Big Battle Is for Saleby Kilian MelloyWednesday Apr 23, 2008 A little gay bookstore in Vancouver that made a big impact on Canadian censorship is going up for sale.
After more than 23 years of fighting back against homophobia of all kinds--from the anti-gay violence of censorship laws to bombs lobbed into their building--the owners of Little Sister’s Book & Art Emporium, Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth, are looking for new owners to continue the shop.
An Apr. 20 article posted at Mclean’s.ca quoted Deva as saying that some people felt threatened by the shop, "Because we were... very, very blatant about being open" about being gay.
Said Deva, "[W]e were threatening to homophobes."
The two men opened the book store in 1983; in 1985, they became embroiled in a fight with censorship authorities that ended in victory in 2000, but which then led to yet another round in the courts that only finished up last year, with the case being decided against Little Sister’s while still handing the establishment something of a moral triumph.
Even as he made preparations for a 25 Anniversary celebration for the business, Deva spoke of moving on, Mclean’s.ca reported: "It’s probably time to pass on the torch hopefully to some younger, energetic people who are willing to work with our store."
Added Deva, "I’m not in a rush [to sell]. We’re going to take our time."
The article noted that the store’s fight with a censorious customs office saw the seizure of books by Jean Genet, Quentin Crisp, and the playwright Joe Orton, along with companion books The Joy of Lesbian Sex and The Joy of Gay Sex.
But the store had support from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, along with high profile writers.
Said Dea, "I think it’s our tenacity. We just wouldn’t give up and came back again and again at them from every angle we could figure out."
And now, when even the Canadian high court recognizes that there remains work to be done in terms of battling censorship, Deva says that the Censorship office has come to understand that "when they make a sort of pronouncement on a book, that they may well have to defend that."
Added Deva, "We still disagree with the process but it’s certainly fairer than it was 20 years ago."
Said the B.C. Civil Liberties Association’s John Dixon, "When you look at the trial record of Little Sister’s [you see that] what it was about wasn’t just about gay sex, it was about the freedom, the right, to not only imagine your sexuality but to talk about your sexuality with other people."
Said Dixon, "If you don’t permit people to talk about their sexual lives, talk about their sexual fantasies, talk about their sexual needs, you’re cutting off an awful lot of thinking about something that is very important--unless you take the view that sex isn’t important for human beings, and that’s wrong," Mclean’s.ca reported.
Dixon went on, "They were on the sharp end of the movement in Canada to liberate sensibilities about the life of the spirit, sex, all that kind of stuff."
The store’s struggles resulted in a book and a film; together with author Stuart Blackley, Janine Fuller, the store’s manager, co-wrote Restricted Entry: Censorship in Trial, and received an honorary Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University, whose president, Michael Stevenson, noted that, "the gains made by Little Sister’s have benefited all Canadians."
A documentary titled Little Sister’s vs. Big Brother was made in 2002 by filmmaker Aerlynn Weismann, leading to a fresh insult from the government when an official with the censor’s office threatened to yank the festival before it opened at Vancouver’s 2002 Out on Screen Queer Film and Video Festival.
The government said that the festival did not have the required permits; but the glaring bias in the matter was so obvious (permits were not a requirement for any other film festivals) that a public backlash resulted, and the festival, together with the film on Little Sister’s went forward.
For such a significant player in Canada’s literary and queer culture, the store had humble origins as a marginal business; the Mclean’s article said that Deva and Smyth lived on the premises along with their cat, after whom the store had been named.
The article quoted Deva as reminiscing, "Looking back, they were very good times."
Added Deva, "The secret is to enjoy part of the journey you are on without being overwhelmed by the stress."
In time, however, the store became a gathering place and a fixture for the local GLBT populace.
But the good will of local gays and lesbians was not all the store drew; a bomb exploded in the stairwell in Dec. of 1987, followed a year afterwards by a second bombing. Then, four years later, the restaurant that Deva co-owned in the same building was similarly damaged by a bomb.
No arrests were ever made in connection with the bomb attacks.
Those incidents may have been frightening, but they were of less consequence in the larger picture, and in the long run, than the resolution of the store’s case against the government’s Customs office for seizing books. The 2000 Canadian Supreme Court ruling in the case saw Little Sisters emerge victorious, and saw Customs now reigned in and required to explain and justify its seizures.
A subsequent case involving compensation to Little Sister’s by Customs was lost by the store, but even so, the Supreme Court recognized the service the business had done for Canada’s culture of letters.
Wrote the justices of the court, "Given that 70 per cent of Customs detentions are of gay and lesbian material, there is unfinished business of high public importance left over from Little Sisters No. 1."
The Supreme Court also reiterated its earlier decision with a passage that read, "Systemic discrimination by Customs officials and unlawful interference with free expression were clearly established in the earlier case and numerous Charter violations and systemic problems in the administration of Customs legislation were found."
Said Deva, "Throwing that light on this very sort of insidious and backroom kind of activity is very, very important."
But, said Deva, the work he and Smyth started cannot be allowed to fall by wayside, though it will be expensive to safeguard Canadians’ rights. "In the future, my concern would be [that] no one would be willing to take on and do what we did because of the mounting costs."
Added Deva, "It is very important work and I think it is important for all Canadians."
But there are other threats to the culture of the community bookstore out there, in the form of discount chains and Internet-based sales.
Said Deva, "I think that small bookstores perform--as this one has--as sort of a soul in a community."
Added Deva, "When we lose all of our small bookstores [then] the books that are important, that are on the edge that change our world, [are] not going to be printed published or sold."
That, reckoned Deva, "is way too dangerous."
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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