![]() ![]() But there was far more support and appreciation than vitriol. About 350 readers cancelled their subscriptions after the column appeared, according to the 1992 account. ![]() The column provoked some backlash - Labonté said he received dozens of hateful and abusive phone calls afterward and was harassed at his home by a group of threatening teenagers. Mayor Jim Watson and MPP Jeremy Roberts have also come out as gay in columns of their own in this newspaper.īut, in 1980, Labonté’s decision go public was almost unheard of. In 1993, Munter, then a city councillor, came out as the Ottawa’s first publicly gay politician. ![]() “There were so very few publicly gay people back then - and almost none in Ottawa - that his courage at that time provided hope and inspiration.” “But, as a gay teenager growing up in Kanata in the 1980s, I certainly knew his name,” Munter said. Article contentĬHEO chief executive officer Alex Munter was still in high school in 1980 and never met Labonté. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
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