International gay activist to speak at Pittsburgh’s Pride

by David Brunner

On June 4, the official Pride events and activities in June begin at 6pm with a Pride Advocacy Rally on the steps of the City County Building (414 Grant Street).

Featured guest speakers will include such longtime gay activists as Cleve Jones, Nate Phelps and Pastor Dr. Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Church of Toronto.

As senior pastor at MCC for more then 30 years, Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes CM has been at the forefront of ministry to the LGBT community in Toronto

In 1994 Rev. Dr. Hawkes received the City of Toronto Award of Merit, the highest civilian award given by the city. In 1995 he received a Global Citizen Award from the United Nations Toronto Association for his work in advancing human rights in Canada.

In 2008 Hawkes was awarded the Order of Canada for his stand on social justice and human rights within the LGBT communities, the highest award a country has bestowed on a gay activist.

Out: You are speaking at a rally here on June 4. What will you be speaking about?

Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes CM: Historically, most of the opposition to gay and lesbian rights has come from religious opposition. I think it is very important for us to address where that is coming from and how that can be counteracted.

I think most of us in North America would not want one religious tradition to dictate public policy. So it is really unfortunate that in Canada and the U.S. a smaller segment of the faith community—the religious right particularly—have been so effective at dictating public policy on many different issues, in particular around human rights for gays and lesbians.

I will talk about our successes and struggles with these issues in Canada. We have no laws in Canada anywhere that discriminate against a gay or lesbian individual or a gay or lesbian couple.

We have 100% equality in law. We don’t yet have 100% equality in practice; so we still have a lot of areas where discrimination exists, but at least we have the law on our side.

What is the situation like in Canada?

In Canada, public opinion polls show that historically there are two groups who oppose gay rights. People are opposed to gay rights for religious reasons certainly, but historically, the largest group has been people who say they do not know anyone who is gay or lesbian. So as people come out, that percentage comes down and our support goes up. That shows the importance of men and women coming out to their loved ones, friends, co-workers, etc.

How do you engage the religious right and address their resistance to human rights?

Unfortunately, more moderate or progressive religious voices are usually not heard in the debate or are only heard in a crisis situation. That gives the perception that the only Christian voice is a right-wing one.

The U.S. certainly started way ahead of Canada in gay rights, but we have now gone way past the U.S. One of the reasons is that in Canada MCC has been very active on the gay-rights issue since the very beginning. I’ve been very much an activist at the table and the conversations.

Whenever the religious right is able to frame an argument in a way that looks like it’s god vs. gays, we lose. Every time we lose. And it’s been our job as a church to undercut that argument.

I think in the U.S. the MCC has not been as strong a voice as the one we have in Canada, and frankly many of the secular gay and lesbian organizations have not engaged MCC or other faith communities. So that on TV when you have a fundamentalist minister debating the leader of a gay rights group, and what does that look like? God vs. Gays.

Secular organizations in the U.S. have really got to engage the MCCs and other faith leaders in various communities who support gay rights.

What are your thoughts on gay marriage? Would it be acceptable to come up with a law that grants everything that comes with marriage but is only different in name?

Absolutely not. It used to be in Canada that the only marriages that were legally recognized were Episcopal—we called them Anglican. The Catholics and the Jews could not legally get married unless they went to an Episcopal church.

That was changed hundreds of years ago, but if someone had suggested that we are going to keep the word ‘marriage’ for the Episcopalians, but Catholics and Jews can have civil unions, no one would support that.

It shocks me that some people in the gay community are willing to say, “Just give us all the rights and you can keep the word marriage.” There is symbolism in the word “marriage.” Hopefully, the U.S. has learned the lesson that separate is not equal.

The other piece of that is that marriage has international recognition. Civil unions don’t. Even in the States where civil unions are recognized in some cities, it’s not portable. Most countries in the world have agreements and treaties that recognize each other’s marriages. They don’t for domestic partners, and they don’t for civil unions.

What first started your interest in activism?

I was raised as a strict fundamentalist Baptist when I was a kid, knowing that I was gay from as far back as I can remember. In high school, I made the decision to become a high school teacher. There was some pressure for me to become a minister, but I could not be gay and be a Baptist minister.

In college, I started meeting gay friends, and one day I was flipping through a copy of the magazine The Advocate and I came across an ad with a large cross on it, and I was stunned. I didn’t even know that MCC existed, but I instantly knew that was home. This was where I could find community, this is where I could answer my call to ministry.

I moved to Toronto in 1976 and I became the pastor of the church in 1977. As soon as I moved here—even before becoming pastor of the church—I became very involved in gay rights issues as the church’s representative.

Much of the civil rights movement is led by religious leaders. The prophet Micah in the Old Testament asked god what you require of me, and god said three things: to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with god. God calls us to do justice. So to me it is part of my faith to be involved in the gay rights movement.

Is there an end point for Canada’s gay rights groups on the horizon?

One of the key points was working to change laws. Gay sex was decriminalized in the 1960s, and we were just given the right to work in the 1980s.

Besides laws, bullying in schools remains an issue, especially as LGBT students are coming out earlier. Many schools don’t have the support systems in place to prevent bullying, and that remains a major issue.

Another issue in Canada is education, so that equality in law becomes equality in practice. We need to reach out to more conservative religious groups. Secondly, there has not been a lot of conversation around gay rights with people who are immigrating to Canada from other parts of the world.

One other emerging area of concern is the field of “competing rights.” The religious right is now using this to try and undermine gay rights. They claim that they are conscientious objectors and that freedom of religion should mean that they should not have to provide services to gays and lesbians. They use this to refuse to allow gay or lesbians in their schools, or allow gay or lesbian people on their bus, and they are now really going to the extremes on this.

So this is a new area of competing rights that we have to make sure we are on top of.

How can people find out more about your church and message?

Our Website is mcctoronto.com, and if you go there, you can click on the link and the last twelve weeks of our sermons are webcast. We tape them live and then archive them.

 

All Pride events produced and sponsored by the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh.  www.pittsburghpride.org.