SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - In 1965, Everett George Klippert, a mechanic's assistant living in the mining town of Pine Point, NWT, was jailed for the crime of making love.

Jason posted the cover of this salacious tabloid under the headline: The Agenda Goes Intergalactic. Homophobic conspiracy theories are just one of the targets of Jason's satire in The Gay White North blog. - photo courtesy of The Gay White North

Back then, any man who admitted to having consensual sex with another man could be incarcerated for up to five years in Canada. A few decades earlier the sentence included a whipping. A few decades before that, the punishment was death.

Klippert's situation was almost as dire. Court-appointed psychiatrists advised Justice J.H. Sissons that the defendant would never stop falling for fellas and so Sissons sentenced Klippert to life in prison.

Klippert fought the law by appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada. The law won and Sissons' sentence stuck.

However, the debate spilled into the media and in 1967 then-Justice Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau tabled Bill C-150, about which he famously stated: "...there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." The laws began to change in 1969.

Given the prominent role a Northerner played in securing rights for gay men, it seems only fitting that the NWT blogging community has recognized a Yellowknife blog for championing global gay rights from a Northern vantage, four decades later.

The Gay White North earned a 2009 Best NWT Blog award for a 12-part series titled Uganda's 'Kill the Gays' Bill. The posts, dated from Dec. 3 to Dec. 22, 2009, explore the back-and-forth buzz surrounding the Ugandan parliament's proposed legislation, which would imprison people for life or, in several instances, execute people for having gay sex. An unnerving North American angle to this ongoing thread is the fact that much of the impetus for the Draconian law stems from a pressure campaign waged earlier in the year by religious extremists in the U.S.

In late December, the Ugandan government began havering on the death penalty provision as American evangelical leaders attempted to tone down the aggression in their own homophobic rhetoric. However, the severe bill they inspired is still on the table.

Jason, the creator of The Gay White North, unpacks the issue with an international selection of online sources, including posts by gay rights organizations, articles from mainstream print media and video statements from preachers. The external links are interspersed with Jason's own acerbic reflections on the matter.

The rest of the blog features gay-themed humour, personal updates and commentary on subjects as diverse as climate change, sealing in Nunavut, Lady Ga Ga's cultural legacy and Yellowknife school board amalgamation.

In his opening blog post on Nov. 2, 2008, Jason shared his pride for his home town.

"In Yellowknife, there is no need for a Gay Pride Parade," he writes. "We are not oppressed or treated any differently. No need to chant, 'I'm here! I'm queer! Get used to it!' And if you did, people would politely smile, wave and say something like, 'Thanks for letting us know, but I've been used to it for a long time now.'"

You can check out The Gay White North, follow at thegaywhitenorth.blogspot.com.