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Members of CitizenGo protest the new 'Gay Lonnie' in front of the Royal Canadian Mint, Ottawa, Ontario, April 12, 2019.CitizenGo / Facebook

OTTAWA, Canada, April 12, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― Canadians demonstrated in Ottawa today at the country's Royal Mint against a new coin to be released in the coming weeks that commemorates the decriminalization of homosexual sex acts. 

Organizer CitizenGO released a statement yesterday saying that it had collected over 48,000 signatures in support of its “demand that the Mint cancel this release of this one dollar coin.” By mid-afternoon today, however, over 49,563 people had signed.

“I am very upset over the planned release of a pro-homosexual one dollar coin later this year. I do not want a 'gay' loonie,” states the petition. “The government must withdraw its plans for any design that celebrates homosexual acts. I do not want homosexuality forced upon me and my country,” it adds. 

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Volunteers from the international platform gathered outside the Mint, located at 320 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, at noon today to denounce the new design of the one dollar coin. The 48,000-person strong petition was also hand-delivered to staff at the Mint.

“It was a great event. We had about a dozen people join us in front of the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa from 12 to 1 PM. Together, we took a stand against the politicization of our coinage and the aggressive push of the LGBT agenda on ALL Canadians,” CitizenGo stated on its Facebook page about the event.

“Many of the pedestrians passing us by were totally supportive. We also got lots of positive honks from the traffic. Not a single counter-protestor showed up,” the group added.

The current government, headed by Justin Trudeau, approved the coin on December 14, 2018.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the design is a “… stylized rendering of two overlapping human faces within a large circle, the left half of the left face in front view and the right face in profile facing left, the two faces forming one whole face in front view composed of two eyes with eyebrows, a nose, a mouth and two ears with a small hoop earring on the left ear …” 

It is understood that the two human faces belong to a couple of the same sex. 

The coin will also feature the years “1969”, when private homosexual acts were decriminalized by the government headed by Trudeau’s father Pierre Trudeau, and “2019”. 

The word “equality” in both English and French will also be included, as will the initials of the artist, currently known only as “RA”.

“Canada’s new coin celebrates day gay sex was legalized,” states a Dec. 30th headline from Queerty.com. 

The one-dollar coin, or “loonie”, as it is popularly known in Canada, was originally, and is normally, engraved with the head of the monarch and the image of a common loon (Gavia immer) on the reverse. A number of commemorative loonies have been struck since the coin was introduced in 1987, usually to celebrate sporting events, like the Olympics or the centenaries of such cultural icons as the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, the Navy, and women’s right to vote. 

It is unprecedented to mint a loonie to mark the semi-centennial of anything, let alone a change in the Criminal Code.    

In 1967 Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000), acting as Canada’s Justice Minister, introduced a controversial “Omnibus Bill” (Bill C-195) to the House of Commons, asking for sweeping changes to the nation’s Criminal Code. Among the changes were the decriminalization of abortion, new restrictions on gun ownership, and the decriminalization of certain sex acts if performed in private.  

Borrowing the famous phrase from a Globe and Mail reporter, Pierre Trudeau told reporters that there was “no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” The elder Trudeau also suggested that homosexual acts in public were “a different matter.” 

The original Omnibus Bill did not seek to decriminalize homosexuality per se, but to distinguish between public and private sexual acts. It stated only that certain sexual acts between consenting adults aged 21 or older were legal when performed in private. If a third person or others were present, these acts–including sodomy–were still considered illegal.

This detail of the Bill changed, however. In 1968, the Omnibus Bill was modified and reintroduced to Parliament by Trudeau’s own Justice Minister, John Turner, as Bill C-150. Inspired by similar legislation pertaining to England and Wales, the Bill now included the explicit decriminalization of homosexual acts among those aged 21 and over. On May 14, 1969, after three weeks of furious opposition from the Quebec’s Catholic Créditiste (Social Credit) party,  Bill C-150 passed third reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 149:55. There were 59 abstentions. 

When Bill C-150 was signed into law both homosexual acts and abortion became legal in Canada. However, men in Canada continued to be arrested for soliciting or performing sexual acts in public and semi-public places. 

Canada legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005, thirty-six years after the passage of bill C-150.