They've been bombed three times, received death threats and stood before the red-robed justices of the Supreme Court of Canada.
No, Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth are not killers or terrorists.
The soft-spoken Vancouver men sell books.
And in some peoples' eyes, Deva says, that made the gay owners of Little Sister's Book & Art Emporium dangerous.
"Because we were (openly gay) and we were very, very blatant about being open . . . we were threatening to homophobes," Deva says.
Only two years after the store opened in 1983, the owners took on a fight that bolstered and exhausted them, lasting until just last year and challenging Canada's censorship laws.
After 23 years of fighting Canada Customs' seizures of books bound for the gay and lesbian bookshop, the partners have put Little Sister's up for sale.
It's time to do something else, Deva says as he plans to get a choir booked for the store's 25th anniversary celebrations.
"It's probably time to pass on the torch hopefully to some younger, energetic people who are willing to work with our store," he says. "I'm not in a rush. We're going to take our time."
The fight against Customs put the store at the forefront of the battle against censorship in Canada.
Among books seized were Jean Genet's Querelle, Quentin Crisp's The Naked Civil Servant, Joe Orton's Prick Up Your Ears, The Joy of Gay Sex and The Joy of Lesbian Sex.
With support from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and writers such as Pierre Berton and Jane Rule, the store would not back down.
"I think it's our tenacity. We just wouldn't give up and came back again and again at them from every angle we could figure out."
But after all the court battles, Deva believes Canada Customs has developed a respect for the gay community's literature and imagery.
"They know that . . . when they make a sort of pronouncement on a book that they may well have to defend that. We still disagree with the process but it's certainly fairer than it was 20 years ago."
But that's not the legacy Deva wants.
"Hopefully, we have contributed to the growth and vibrancy of our community."
John Dixon of the civil liberties association, thinks Deva is being modest. He sees Deva and Smyth as liberators of the human spirit.
"When you look at the trial record of Little Sister's . . . what it was about wasn't just about gay sex, it was about the freedom, the right, to not only imagine your sexuality but to talk about your sexuality with other people.
"If you don't permit people to talk about their sexual lives, talk about their sexual fantasies, talk about their sexual needs, you're cutting off an awful lot of thinking about something that is very important - unless you take the view that sex isn't important for human beings, and that's wrong," Dixon says.
"They were on the sharp end of the movement in Canada to liberate sensibilities about the life of the spirit, sex, all that kind of stuff."
The fight's history was chronicled in Restricted Entry: Censorship on Trial by Stuart Blackley and store manager Janine Fuller.
In recognition of Fuller's role in that fight, Deva and Smyth have made her continued employment a condition of sale.
Fuller was given an honorary doctorate by Burnaby's Simon Fraser University in 2004 for her part in the store's fight.
University president Michael Stevenson said "the gains made by Little Sister's have benefited all Canadians."
The story was also chronicled in director Aerlynn Weismann's 2002 film Little Sister's vs. Big Brother.
The film was scheduled to premier at the 2002 Out on Screen Queer Film and Video Festival in Vancouver.
However, the night before the premier, an official with the provincial censor said the right permits weren't in place. He threatened to shut the film down.
No other festivals in the city had been required to obtain such permits.
The move sparked howls of protest, the government backed down and more than 1,000 people turned out to see the film.
Long before the cameras showed up, though, the store opened in 1983, its shelves sparsely populated with books.
As they struggled to make ends meet, Deva and Smyth often slept in a room not far from the counter. With them was the store cat, Little Sister.
"Looking back, they were very good times," Deva says. "The secret is to enjoy part of the journey you are on without being overwhelmed by the stress."
The store became a focal point for the city's gay community. People dropped in for a coffee, to chat, to play pinball.
It soon became - and has remained - the community's unofficial community centre even after a move to larger premises in 1996.
In December of 1987, the store's calm was shattered.
Someone tossed a bomb into the teal-painted staircase, splintering the stairs and shredding the quilt of community-events posters which lined the walls.
A year later, it happened again.
The bomber was never caught.
In 1992, the restaurant downstairs - which Deva co-owned - was also bombed. Deva found himself up to his knees in glass.
"Couldn't hear. Could hardly see. There was dust everywhere. People screaming," he says.
The next night they had one customer.
Deva laughs: "He had previously been in Beirut. He just wanted to test his nerves one more time."
But it wasn't the violence that brought the store national attention.
The store emerged from the obscurity of a downtown Vancouver back street to national prominence in 1985 when Customs officers began seizing books.
In 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada finally ruled in the store's favour. From then on, Customs would have to justify its actions.
But in 2004, the store again alleged Customs had violated that ruling with new seizures.
This time, though, the money to fight the government was becoming scarce.
Customs appealed a June 2004 decision by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett that the government pay advanced costs for the store's fight against the seizures.
Bennett ruled the "issue transcends the interests of Little Sisters and touches all book importers, both commercial and private."
Her decision was rejected by the B.C. Court of Appeal and this time, Little Sister's lost at the high court.
In January 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada denied the store's appeal and Bennett's order for advanced funding.
"We're just winding down the last case and sort of saying: 'We give in,"' Deva says. "It was an interesting journey. It was also difficult to run a business at the time we were trying to mount this huge court case."
But even as they rejected advance costs for the store, the top court justices acknowledged the fight Little Sister's has spearheaded.
"Given that 70 per cent of Customs detentions are of gay and lesbian material, there is unfinished business of high public importance left over from Little Sisters No. 1," they wrote.
"Systemic discrimination by Customs officials and unlawful interference with free expression were clearly established in the earlier case and numerous Charter violations and systemic problems in the administration of Customs legislation were found."
Deva has praise for the justices who he says took the cases seriously, but he warns the cost of free speech is high when you're fighting the government.
"Throwing that light on this very sort of insidious and backroom kind of activity is very, very important," he says. "In the future, my concern would be is no one would be willing to take on and do what we did because of the mounting costs.
"It is very important work and I think it is important for all Canadians."
Meanwhile, small specialty bookstores face a more ordinary but equally fierce attack from speciality bookstores.
"I think that small bookstores perform - as this one has - as sort of a soul in a community. When we lose all of our small bookstores . . . the books that are important, that are on the edge that change our world, (they're) not going to be printed published or sold.
"It is way too dangerous."
