Target practice...
again.
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Our Battles Against Censorship
The OFRB (Ontario Film Review Board, which used to be called the Ontario Board of Censors) laid charges against Glad Day Bookshop and its owner for selling one gay adult video. The video is Descent, directed by Steven Scarborough and starring the British poet and musician Aiden Shaw, who wrote the screenplay.
The Board controls which commercial films, videos and dvds can be seen in Ontario. If any are shown or sold without the censor board's prior approval, charges can be laid. The maximum fine for a business is $100,000 and $25,000 for the owner and/or up to a year in prison.
Glad Day Bookshop is fighting the charges and the law under which they were laid. The store, through its lawyer Frank Addario, has launched a constitutional challenge to the Ontario Film Review Board's system of regulation and censorship. Remarkably, the Board can ban or censor videos that are not criminally obscene!
a legal defense fund has been set up for the bookstore. You can make a donation by mail or at the store. Cheques should be made out to:
Frank Addario In Trust.
Thank you for your support!
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As Canada's first lesbian and gay bookstore, Glad Day Bookshop has been attacked repeatedly over representations of lesbian and gay sexuality. For example:
In 1987, Canada Customs seized The Joy of Gay Sex and banned the book from Canada. Glad Day Bookshop took Customs to court and won.
In 1992, the store lost an appeal against a Customs seizure because the judge said representations of gay sex were "degrading".
In the same year, Toronto police charged the bookstore for selling Bad Attitude, a lesbian magazine made by women for women, which the judge decided was "obscene".
Month after month, the store continues to face and to fight customs seizures.
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