the\u00a0Conseil qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois LGBT.<\/a><\/p>\nBut his \u201cmost important struggle was the struggle for gay marriage, which did not exist,\u201d Le Clerc said. \u201cThere was civil union, but he wanted more than that. He believed that his rights as a gay man should be recognized as those of a full citizen and not a second-class citizen. And, with others, he led a struggle to have that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendricks and Ren\u00e9 LeBoeuf met at a New Year\u2019s party in Montreal in the mid-1970s. They had been together 30 years when they sued the provincial government for the right to marry, asserting that its refusal to permit same-sex marriages violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Quebec\u2019s Superior Court ruled in their favour in 2002, but delayed implementing its decision to give the federal government time to adjust its own law. (Same-sex marriage would be legalized nationwide only in 2005.) Hendricks and LeBoeuf appealed and, in 2004, a Quebec Court of Appeal ruling allowed same-sex marriages to proceed immediately. They married on April 1, 2004.<\/p>\n
![\"Same-sex](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/hendricks_0f0059.jpg\")
Ren\u00e9 LeBoeuf, left, and Michael Hendricks at the Montreal courthouse on April 1, 2004, as they became the first same-sex couple in Quebec to get married. MARIE FRANCE COALLIER \/ GAZETTE<\/p>\n
As a couple, \u201cthey were very affectionate and absolutely adored each other and relied on each other,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cParticularly in his later years, Ren\u00e9 was a pillar of strength for Michael.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fight for same-sex marriage started out as their fight. \u201cBut it turned into doing the right thing for the wider community,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cThey fought for all of us. Montrealers \u2014 queer and straight \u2014 all owe Michael a lot. He helped change our city for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burnett and Hendricks met \u201cin the LGBT trenches after the Sex Garage raid in July of 1990. That\u2019s when there were a lot of community actions, demonstrations against police violence,\u201d Burnett said. <\/p>\n
They became friends after Burnett became the LGBTQ+ columnist in 1996 at the alternative weekly Hour, which embraced advocacy journalism.<\/p>\n
He dubbed activists Hendricks, Le Clerc, Metcalfe and Douglas Buckley-Couvrette, who died of AIDS in 2001, \u201cthe queer brain trust.\u201d As they planned and organized demonstrations and other events, \u201cthey were absolutely fearless. They worked like a hockey team. Michael was the deep-thinking strategist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Metcalfe: \u201cWhat counted for Michael was to be serious, solid. He was the one who wrote everything \u2014 the letters to newspapers, all of it. It\u2019s because of him that items remain from this period.\u201d<\/p>\n
The so-called queer brain trust successfully pressured the government to hold public hearings on violence against members of the gay and lesbian community. In late 1993, hearings by Quebec\u2019s human rights commission led to 21 recommendations, including that the Montreal police department \u201cestablish liaisons with the gay community to improve relations \u2014 and that happened,\u201d Burnett said.<\/p>\n
Recalled Le Clerc: \u201cWe worked hard with police and did training with young officers to make them more aware of the importance of their presence and their reality when they confronted us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Burnett: \u201cThat came directly out of those hearings, which came out of the queer brain trust. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think we need to salute our heroes \u2014 and Michael was a hero.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendricks was also a driving force behind Parc de l\u2019Espoir, a Montreal space dedicated to victims of HIV\/AIDS established in 1991 by ACT UP as a memorial site. The space was officially inaugurated in 1994 by then-mayor Jean Dor\u00e9, redesigned in 1997 and renovated in 2021 into a larger and more accessible public space.<\/p>\n
A not-for-profit organization to protect the park, M\u00e9moire vivante du parc de l\u2019Espoir, was established and Burnett has been volunteer administrator since 2020. Hendricks was another of the administrators and their final meeting was Feb. 13; he had announced in January that he had registered for MAID.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it would be our last time seeing each other,\u201d Burnett recalled, and it was a difficult goodbye. \u201cI told Michael: \u2018It has been my great honour to serve alongside you, and my great fortune to become your friend.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Metcalfe: \u201cMichael believed in freedom and justice \u2014 and that when there is injustice, you have to act.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a volunteer at Stella, a Montreal sex workers\u2019 rights group, \u201cyou saw his feminism and his sense of justice. He took his experience and used it in helping them to be recognized. Few gay men would be involved in helping sex workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we saw all the injustices and that we were treated as second-class citizens, Michael demanded public hearings so people could tell their stories,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it is a huge injustice to spend 50 years with someone and end up with no pension or recognition of your union.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a courageous man \u2014\u00a0someone with a strong sense of right and wrong, someone with integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Hendricks (1941-2026), a foundational figure in Montreal HIV\/AIDS activism, a prominent LGBTQ+ rights advocate and one-half of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-819232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/hendrick_d79a0f.jpg\")
Michael Hendricks\u2019s \u201cmost important struggle was the struggle for gay marriage,\u201d says Roger Le Clerc, left, seen with Michael Hendricks and Claudine Metcalfe in Montreal on March 12, 2014. Pierre Obendrauf \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n