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Social Movements and Equality Seeking: The Case of Gay Liberation in Canada*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Miriam Smith
Miriam Smith
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Abstract

This article examines the impact of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on social movement politics in Canada using the case of the gay liberation movement. Drawing on the comparative social movement literature, the article situates equality seeking as a strategy and meaning game that legitimates new political identities and that is aimed at mobilizing a movement's constituency. The article demonstrates that equality seeking was a strategy and a meaning frame that was deployed in the lesbian and gay rights movement (exemplified by the gay liberation movement of the 1970s) prior to the entrenchment of the Charter. Thus, it concludes that some claims about the Charter's impact on social movement organizing have been exaggerated.

Résumé

Le présent article analyse l'incidence de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés sur les activités politiques des mouvements sociaux au Canada à la lumière du mouvement de libération gaie. S'appuyant sur les études comparées des mouvements sociaux, l'article présente la lutte pour I' égalité comme une stratégic et un cadre sémantique qui légitime de nouvelles identité politiques et qui vise à mobiliser la base du mouvement. L'article démontre que la lutte pour l'égalité a constitué une stratégie et un cadre sémantique déployé par le mouvement de défense des droits des gais est des lesbiennes (comme en témoigne le mouvement de libération gaie des années soixante-dix) et ce, bien avant l'enchâssement de la Charte. Il appert, par conséquent, que certaines assertions attribuent à la Charte une influence exagérée sur l'organization des mouvement sociaux.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , June 1998 , pp. 285 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1998

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References

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24 The Coalition was renamed the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition in 1978. To avoid confusion, I will simply use the name NGRC throughout.

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