Sometimes advances in equality and acceptance are measured in small, seemingly insignificant, events but which often carry huge symbolic meaning for those within the affected group.
The Rainbow, or Pride, flag designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978 is perhaps one of the most recognized symbols of the LGBTQ movement and has come to represent, in many ways, not just "gay pride" but our sense of community, a sense of commonality with each other. It serves as any flag does to represent a group identity, something akin to a nation - not in the sense of statehood like the Maple Leaf does for Canada or the Stars and Stripes does for the US, but something more along the lines of the concept of ‘nation’ as used within North American aboriginal culture, as something more profound and deeper than simply ‘community’. I know when I look at a Rainbow flag flying, I feel a surge run through me, something I can only describe as pride. I look at a Rainbow flag and it touches my soul and heart and a voice deep in my psyche says "that’s mine!" This is what flags are designed to elicit.
Its one thing to see a Rainbow flag hanging off a downtown apartment balcony during Pride Week or see hundreds of them being waved during a Pride Parade. To see it fluttering atop a flagpole alongside the flags and ensigns of other countries, recognized as representing us and the validation that offers, is something else again.
To therefore see it raised and honoured in an environment rich in tradition and history, such as an Army base, is by no means an insignificant event.
In June of this year, a month traditionally associated with the commemoration of the Stonewall Riots of June 1969 and during which most international Pride Festivals are held in honour of that commemoration, Canadian Forces Base Edmonton conducted a flag-raising ceremony attended by Base Commander Lieutenant-Colonel John Reissenstein, his senior officers, and civilian members of the LGBTQ community.
The military is steeped in tradition. Flags, ensigns, and what are known as ‘colours’ (regimental standards bearing battle honours and insignia detailing the regiment’s or corps’ history) play a key role. Enter a chapel, especially an Anglican one, on any military base and these standards are mounted along the walls. Growing up Army (and Anglican) this was a familiar sight, just as seeing first the Canadian Ensign and then, later, the Red Maple Leaf and the ensigns of the different branches of the Canadian military atop flagpoles at the end of the central parade square was. To know a Rainbow flag was raised alongside these venerable cloths and honoured with them - that is something profound.
Master Warrant Officer (MWO) John McDougall requested the flag-raising through the chain-of-command as is the protocol and was surprised when it was swiftly granted.
MWO McDougall is a 23-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces and noted how much things have changed since he joined in 1990.
"When I first joined," he recently told Canadian Press, "I would never [have] even considered telling anyone I was gay. It just wasn’t [considered] macho," he said.
To put things into perspective, 1990 was the year of Calgary’s first Gay and Lesbian Pride Rally and March, which later evolved into our annual Pride Festival, organized by the Calgary Lesbian and Gay Political Action Guild (CLAGPAG) and attended by 140 individuals, many of whom wore masks or paper bags over their heads. The community itself was divided on the whole idea of such a public expression, despite Pride celebrations being by then (20 years after Stonewall) a staple in cities all over the world, with some quarters publicly condemning CLAGPAG, and those of us involved with it, as ‘radicals’ and ‘rocking the boat.’
In 1990, ‘sexual orientation’ was still not a protected characteristic in provincial human rights legislation and one could, legally, be fired or evicted from a rental accommodation for being gay or lesbian and denied access to public service. CLAGPAG was created to lobby for sexual orientation inclusion in what was then known as the Individual Rights Protection Act, Alberta’s human rights legislation.
It would prove to be a long and difficult battle that didn’t end until a shy, soft-spoken individual by the name of Delwin Vriend tried to get redress after being fired for being homosexual from King’s College in Edmonton by going to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, only to be told there was nothing they could do since ‘sexual orientation’ was not protected. His only redress was to go through the courts. He won at the Court of Queen’s Bench, but the provincial government appealed the decision at the Alberta Court of Appeals, and won. Vriend took his case to the Supreme Court of Canada which handed down, in 1997, the landmark decision now known as The Vriend Decision, instructing the Klein government to ‘read in’ sexual orientation into the provincial legislation.
This, then, is the social and political background out of which MWO McDougall’s military career began. With the LGBTQ community in Canada now finally enjoying full equality and with the battles over acceptance, legislative protection, inheritance rights between spouses, and equal marriage behind us, it is easy to forget just how hard-won something as simple as raising a Rainbow flag can be.
To know that acceptance within the ranks at CF Base Edmonton has been a matter-of-course is equally profound. Soldiers and other military personnel are perhaps amongst the most conservative individuals of any given population. When the Canadian Armed Forces declared acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual personnel to be official policy, there were dire predictions of negative troop morale, of the detrimental effect that someone who was openly homosexual would have on those ‘having’ to serve alongside the individual, of the discomfort the average soldier would feel sharing sleeping space with someone he (or she) now knew to be gay or lesbian and - oh my g-d! - showering and sharing bathroom facilities with such a person...!! Predictions of a groundswell of backlash were rampant. None of it, or at least very little of it, came to pass. Openly gay and lesbian and, yes, even transsexual individuals have served in our military for years now with no negative affect.
MWO McDougall himself has served in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone, all well-known ‘trouble spots’ where unit cohesion is crucial to one’s survival. Your fellow soldiers are often the only people around you who you can trust. Every one of them literally holds your life in his or her hands, just as you hold theirs in yours. Predictions of gay or lesbian soldiers being bashed or abandoned in a firefight never materialized. Soldiers are like that....they are there to do a job and so long as you do your job you are accepted.
A spokesperson for the military, Navy Lieutenant Jessica McDonald, noted there has been absolutely no backlash or resistance to the flag-raising at CF Base Edmonton, home to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI), Lord Strathcona’s Horse (LDSH), 1 Service Battalion and 1 Field Ambulance, all of which once called CFB Calgary at Currie and Sarcee Barracks ‘home’, as well 1 Combat Engineer Regiment. CFB Edmonton is a key base within the Canadian Army infrastructure and is where 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (1 CMBG) is headquartered.
She stated the flag-raising was, "a symbol to all members of the GLBT community, whether they are civilian or serving members, that the Canadian Forces promotes principles of inclusiveness, equality, and dignity."
It appears that while, on a symbolic level, the flag-raising is an important event in the history of the recognition of equality it was also met with an attitude of acceptance one would have been hard-pressed to expect even ten years ago. When we look to our neighbours to the south and the whole ongoing kerfuffle over ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and DADT’s repeal by the Obama Administration and the paroxysm’s many on the right went and are going through around that, this acceptance is highlighted even more.
As McDougall said after stating how proud he was to see the Rainbow flag flying over the base, to have who he is recognized and respected, and to be able to bring his partner of 18 years to the ceremony, "in this day and age of tolerance, it shouldn’t be a big issue."
That it wasn’t speaks volumes on how far we have come.