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Richard North
(1951 - living) Canada

Richard North

Activist, nurse

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In 1972 Chris Vogel and Rich North met at the University of Manitoba and together joined Gays for Equality (GFE).

In 1974 Richard North (22 y.o.) and his partner Chris Vogel (26 y.o.), a gay Winnipeg couple, were among Winnipeg's earliest gay rights activists; they were formally married in the Unitarian Universalist church (an event which made headlines across Canada), but the registrar of vital statistics refused to register the marriage; in 1985 North went on a 59-day hunger strike to protest the NDP provincial government's refusal to add sexual orientation to the Human Rights Act.

On September 16, 2004, Manitoba became the fifth Canadian jurisdiction to provide same-sex marriage rights; three Manitoba couples were successful in their court fight; ruling by Justice Douglas Yard of Court of Queen's Bench ended a 30-year fight for Chris Vogel and Richard North, "who had applied for a marriage license in 1974 and were turned down". Roman Catholic Archbishop of Winnipeg, James Weisgerber, (of course) expressed displeasure with the ruling.

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