Judging Homosexuals: A History of Gay Persecution in Quebec and France (Sexuality Studies)

In 2004, the first same-sex couple legally married in Quebec. How did homosexuality - an act that had for centuries been defined as abominable and criminal - come to be sanctioned by the rule of law? Judging Homosexuals finds answers to this question not in recent developments but in a comparative analysis of homosexuality in France and Quebec, places that share a common culture but have diverging legal traditions. To explain why attitudes shifted from acceptance, if not valorization, in ancient Greece to vilification under Judeo-Christian authorities and then back to acceptance today, Patrice Corriveau examines how various groups and actors - family and clergy, doctors and jurists - have tried to manage people who were defined in turn as sinners, as criminals, as inverts, and as citizens to be protected by law. By bringing to the forefront the various discourses that have supported the control and persecution of individual homoerotic behaviour in France and Quebec, this book makes the case that when it came to managing sexuality, the law helped construct the crime.