This coming Saturday, September 28, a self-proclaimed “Christian values” group has announced that they will march through the centre of Toronto’s “Gay Village”, the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood. The group, which calls itself “Christian Positive Space,” claims that they chose Church St. to march on only because of the traditionally-Christian connotations of the word “Church”… and therefore, according to the group’s spokesperson David Lynn, are only be promoting Christianity and not homophobia.
I have only two words to respond to that claim: Bull. Shit.
This march comes after months of so-called Christian street preachers — including the same “Brother Phillip” of the hate group “ServantHOODs” who incited attackers during the June 2019 Hamilton Pride event — showing up in the Village and harassing the LGBTQ+ community on the streets. This harassment has been to the point where police have arrested David Lynn himself (although, alas, not charged him) for disturbing the peace.
Let there be no mistake: These people are absolutely homophobic and their march is a deliberate attack on the LGBTQ+ community in Toronto and across Ontario. And thanks to the bullshit reactions on one of my earlier posts, let me state something so we’re all on the same page here: Homophobia refers to the hatred and fear of LGBTQ+ people and action taken to harm them because of that hate… and since this apparently also needs to be said, it is a very bad thing to hate and harm people simply because of their sexuality.
The notion that these so-called Christian religious groups are marching through a predominately LGBTQ+ neighbourhood to promote “values” of any sort is the thinnest of veneers over an agenda of hate whose ultimate goal is to gaining political power in order to establish a quasi-theological state which would impose oppression, criminalization and ultimately the extermination of LGBTQ+ people in Canada.
It’s been a long time since my high-school religion-in-life classes, but I’m having a hard time figuring on how any of that corresponds to “Christian values.”
The term which more accurately reflects the goals of these extreme-right homophobic groups is christofascism; that is, using nominal Christianity as an excuse for imposing a fascistic ideology on others. One of thee defining features of these groups is claiming victimhood on behalf of all Christians… as the CPS and ServantHOODs frequently do.
It is therefore unsurprising that various neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups are expected to join and support the so-called Christian preachers. Counter-protest organizers are warning that PEGIDA and their allies the Proud Boys, Soldiers of Odin, Northern Guard, and Canadian Nationalist Party members are likely to be attend and support the hate preachers… which dramatically increases the likelihood of violence against LGBTQ+ people.
So much for the claims of “we love everybody”… But then we all know that these people use merely use their religion as an excuse for bigotry.
The LGBTQ+ community recognized this threat instantly. The 519, Toronto’s famed LGBTQ+ community centre, called immediately for a non-violent direct action and civil disobedience in the face of this christofascist march. Toronto Against Fascism, Intersectional Anti-Facists and the Toronto IWW GDC Local 28 are all organizing a counter-event called Stonewall Hate to help counter the hate march and make a statement against the threat these hate groups represent to LGBTQ+ and Muslim communities in Toronto.
Its also notable — and telling — that the organizing groups have outright stated that the Toronto Police Service cannot be relied on to protect the LGBTQ+ community. Like at Hamilton Pride, some of these same so-called Christians also attacked people at Toronto Pride a week later, videotaping it and posting the videos online. Toronto Police, despite having literal confessions by the attackers, have made no arrests and laid no charges.
This has only reinforced feelings of resent towards and alienation from the police… which was originally engendered by, among other things, the refusal of the Toronto Police to listen when the community told them a serial killer was operating in the Village (for more than a decade!) and the disastrous mishandling of the public-relations fallout when it turned out that yes, there was a killer after all. The LGBTQ+ community in Toronto, like that in Hamilton, don’t trust their own police service, and for every good reasons. Like Hamilton’s deeply problematic police culture, the Toronto police have a long history of vilifying and victimizing LGBTQ+ people while prioritizing the safety and agency of their attackers instead.
And frankly, I don’t expect much out of the Toronto Police Service this weekend myself. As at Toronto Pride, I fully expect to see police use violence against the anti-fascist protesters rather than the hate groups who are planning attacks on LGBTQ+ people. Like their Hamilton colleagues, the TPS have made it clear through their negligence, unprofessional conduct and tacit support of fascist groups that they don’t give a shit about LGBTQ+ people.
And that’s what these community mobilizations recognize, that we can’t rely on police to defend our communities because they don’t value our communities. At the risk of repeating myself: The police don’t keep up safe, we keep us safe.
So the LGBTQ+ community and their allies will mobilize and try and keep the hate preachers and their allies out of the Gay Village. The LGBTQ+ mobilization is already under attack by alt-right trolls trying to paint the event as an anti-Christian one, including faked calls for violence against the hate groups. To be absolutely clear: there is no reputable voice from the LGBTQ+ community calling for violence, and the groups which are organizing these events have been explicit in their calls for nonviolent civil disobedience.
So, yet again, progressives in this province have to stand up and resist the hate groups. I understand, intellectually, that we’re really only dealing with a small number of people. A lot of the hate group members this Saturday will no doubt be recognizable from other events, including the regular hate-group gatherings in Hamilton. But the hate preachers claim to represent Christians across the country, and I can’t see any evidence to the contrary.
What the LGBTQ+ community needs is not just the usual resisters to attend — IWW, anarchists and anti-fascists generally — we need the support of people from suburban and rural Christian churches who will stand up and condemn the hate groups. We need ministers and priests across Canada to condemn these hate groups and their actions from the pulpit. We need the moderate Christian community to show the hell up.
If I were a self-professed Christian, I’d be livid that these fascist assholes are misrepresenting my religion as an excuse to hurt and degrade LGBTQ+ people. I’m not seeing a lot of outrage from Christians about this. At best, they seem to be indifferent to the actions of the hate groups.
I’d love to see Catholic Womens’ League banners and Lutheran ministers and my mum’s old church choir getting off of buses and standing in numbers beside the LGBTQ community to refute the claims of the hate preachers that they’re professing Christianity… but I doubt very much we’ll see them. Christians, even moderate Christians, aren’t going to stick their necks out for the LGBTQ+ community. They’ve had ample opportunity to do so in the past, and they’ve rarely done so and never in the needed numbers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you claim to be Christian and don’t stand up against these people, clearly and loudly, then you’re tacitly supporting them.
The sad truth is we can’t depend on moderate Christians. We can’t depend on the police. I doubt very much we can depend on Toronto’s neutered municipal government, much less the province… (and let’s face it, Doug Ford would probably have the entire LGBTQ+ population of Toronto shoved off Queens Quay and into the harbour if he thought there were votes in it for him.) I doubt very many federal political candidates will put themselves out there to defend the LGBTQ+ community on the streets on Saturday.
We can only depend on ourselves to resist these hate groups and send the message that our communities cannot and will not tolerate being victimized by fascists hiding behind the veil of Christianity. I hope to see you there.
