Gerald Hannon warned a group of lesbian and gay journalists recently that too much energy is going into proving that homosexuals are just like everybody else.
"We're perverts," he reminded those at a Nov 19 meeting of the National Lesbian And Gay Journalists Association--Canada. He said that while many are seeking middle-class respectability, some lesbians and gay men aren't looking for that house in the suburbs and a white picket fence. Many are prostit utes or other "undesirables"--and the mainstream gay movement, to its shame, is leaving them behind.
A week later, the Toronto Sun had Hannon on its cover: "Ryerson Prof: I'm A Hooker."
Hannon's candid interview with the paper followed a series of attacks by Sun columnist Heather Bird, who wrote that she is sickened by the fact that Hannon believes that intergenerational sex is not always abusive.
Hannon's confession to supplementing his teaching income with prostitution was the last straw. In a terse, Nov 26 press release, Ryerson Polytechnic University suspended the part-time journalism instructor indefinitely and ordered him to have no contact with his students. "We will be investigating whether his alleged conduct is unbefitting his status as a member of the teaching community at Ryerson," said president Claude Lajeunesse.
"My idea of a university," Hannon responded, "is the free exchange of ideas... Keeping ideas off campus seems to be their idea of what's best for the university.
"I don't appreciate parents' fear for their children [and of their children's ideas]. The university is not like a European health spa."
He said that paedophilia must be open to debate. "We have our Mount Cashel's [a Newfounlan school for boys who were abused by Catholic priests]--and that's horrifying to me. But until people sit down and discuss rationally... [the issue, the sexuality of children will be ignored or taken advantage of]."
Hannon also said he doesn't know whether the brouhaha is the result of homophobia. "It has certainly never been expressed as such. People are certainly too polite to express it as such."
Hannon is a member of the board of directors of Pink Triangle Press, the not-for-profit which publishes Xtra.
PEN Canada and the Writer's Union of Canada have released statements supporting Hannon's right to freedom of speech.
Lisa Steele, of the Committee To Defend Gerald Hannon, can be reached by fax at (416) 351-1509. Ryerson president can be reached c/o 350 Victoria St, Toronto M5B 2K3.
For a detailed chronology of the Hannon case, check out http://www.io.org/~goxford/hannon.html through any computer modem.
[Note: In Jeff's original file, the URL given above was a link, which has been deactivated. The current full address of the site is http://www.clga.ca/Material/Records/docs/hannon/ox/hannon.htm RB / 18/5/97]
Picture Caption:
THE MEANING OF LIFE. Gerald Hannon (right) with a client, in a scene from the fact-based Symposium, by Nik Sheehan.