ABSTRACT
In 1963, a young white man in Brooklyn, New York, was one of the approximately 121,000 people who decided to apply for U.S. citizenship that year. He carefully prepared and submitted his application, never expecting that it would put him at the center of a U.S. Supreme Court case that became a definitive legal statement on the relationship between U.S. citizenship and sexual orientation. Born in Canada, Clive Michael Boutilier had moved to the U.S. with his parents at the age of twenty-one, entering the country on a visa granted by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Eight years later, when he petitioned for citizenship, an INS investigator followed up with a request that Boutilier recount his sexual history both before and after his arrival in the United States. Answering truthfully that he had engaged in sexual activity with both men and women since the age of fourteen, Boutilier provided an official affidavit that included extensive details about his sexual life.1 He had not disclosed this information when he first immigrated to the U.S., perhaps not realizing that it would be considered pertinent, since the visa form did not ask explicit questions about “homosexuality” or “sodomy.” But based on these additional details about Boutilier’s sexual history, the U.S. Public Health Service (which was required to certify the medical condition of every applicant for U.S. citizenship) determined that he was affected with “a class A condition, namely, psychopathic personality, sexual deviate,” a category of immigrants prohibited from entry into the United States at the time. The INS ruled that Boutilier never should have been granted an immigrant visa in the first place, let alone U.S. citizenship, and immediately began deportation proceedings against him. With the help of lawyers, Boutilier appealed the decision, a challenge that eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. Despite his lawyers’ best efforts, Boutilier lost his case. In its written opinion, the Court affirmed that Congress had indeed intended to exclude “homosexuals” from eligibility for immigration and U.S. citizenship. The ruling was a devastating blow for Boutilier personally, a chilling legal precedent, and a warning to gay men and lesbians who might subsequently attempt to immigrate to the U.S. or try to become citizens. In a traffic accident (which may have been a suicide attempt), Boutilier suffered traumatic injuries from which he never fully recovered. Severely disabled, he was deported in 1968 and lived in Canada until his death in 2003.
