Restricted entry

by Janine Fuller

What do Oscar Wilde, Jane Rule, Jean Genet and Sarah Schulman have in common? They have all had their novels seized by the border guards of Canada Customs. And what has Little Sister's, a small gay and lesbian bookstore in western Canada, done about it? They have taken the Government to court, launching one of the century's most impressive challenges to state censorship. Restricted Entry is the story of Little Sister's battle to end Customs' ongoing harassment of gay and lesbian authors and booksellers. In the final months of 1994, the lawsuit was played out in provincial Supreme Court with all the intensity of an old-fashioned obscenity trial. The courtroom drama pitted bookseller versus vice squad, artist vs. psychologist, author vs. bureaucrat. Pierre Berton, Sarah Schulman, Carole Vance and Pat Califia, among many others, testified in the fight for an end to censorship of minority cultures and in defence of all people's right to choose what they will or will not read. Restricted En