I would like to thank Garth for inviting me to preach today, and Garth and Sharon for their support, feedback and prayers.

Earlier this month, Mona, Sheanna and I were in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, visiting my mother, Millie Manthorne, whom many of you know. While there, we had the opportunity to visit St. John's Anglican Church, founded in 1753 and the second oldest Protestant church in British North America.

A few years ago, the Lunenburg St. John's was nearly destroyed by fire. It has been restored, and reopened this June. With its vaulted ceiling, designed to look like the hull of a fishing vessel, and its painstakingly recreated stain glassed windows, St. John's rose from the ashes like a phoenix, a reborn, different building, and yet exactly the same.

We also had the opportunity to attend a meditative concert at St. John's one afternoon, given by a local pianist I have known for a long time. During his concert, Jim spoke of having had a stroke three years ago that took away his ability to play the piano. In the three years it took for St. John's to rise again, he struggled resolutely to learn to play the piano once more. During Jim's concert, I meditated on the tenacity of the people of Lunenburg in restoring a national historic site as well as an important living church, and Jim's personal courage in overcoming illness and disability and his own rebirth as a classical musician and music teacher.

If there was ever a time for the Anglican Church in Canada to emulate the resurrection of the phoenix from its own ashes, it would be now. But I am not certain the Church has the vision or the courage to do so.

Since last spring, when Garth asked me to preach on Pride Sunday, I have tried to hear what the Spirit was saying to me in this sanctuary, in my reading, and especially in my daily life. For the most part, I was not reading religious tomes or studying the Bible. I was reading newspaper articles and editorials about the same-sex marriage debate, radio and television interviews for and against it, and the many letters on the subject in the Anglican Journal, a lot of them vitriolic and hateful. Sometimes I felt ashamed to be an Anglican.

It was a quixotic time, a time when I felt like I was standing outside the debate and peering in, wondering what the commotion was all about. The often heated discourse among politicians and religious leaders was about whether or not I should have the same human rights as heterosexual Canadians. But the debate seemed to be happening in a vacuum, as if I didn't really exist, as if many lesbian and gay Canadians weren't already living in what was close to full equality. For example, I had already been married in the United Church in the 31st year of a committed relationship, was out at work and in my social life, and able to adopt a child. As you know, much of this was not possible in Canada until recently, and in many parts of the world, lesbians and gay men are not able live in freedom for fear of bashing, imprisonment or death.

I was stimulated recently by Garth's comment that Canada wasn't in the Bible, although it might have been if it had existed at the time. I pondered about what Jesus might have said about Canada - what our national parables would have been. I pondered what it might mean that the Anglican Church wasn't in the Bible either. Just like Canada, it is a human construct, with a lot to be proud of, and some things we shouldn't be proud of.

I thought about Jann's last sermon, when he so eloquently enumerated the great liberation movements that freed peoples who had been enslaved by other human beings. While he was preaching, I was thinking about the similarities between the civil rights movement in the United States, the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the rise of feminism and the gay liberation movement. All liberation movements arise from the determination of people to right wrongs, to overcome bigotry and prejudice, to seek justice, and the gay liberation movement is no exception. In the beginning, just after Stonewall, I don't think many of us realized that we were involved in a liberation movement. I think we were sick and tired of feeling evil and living in our closets and of being harassed by the police and discriminated against when we ventured out. It was only later, after we began to stop hating ourselves and we began to love and celebrate ourselves that we collectively started to believe that we had the right to demand equality. Then it slowly dawned that ours was a true movement of liberation for LGBT peoples.

Same-gender marriage is now the law in Canada - the fourth country in the world after Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain to legalize civil marriage between two people of the same gender. While not everyone in the gay community believes this is a good thing - and certainly a vocal minority of heterosexuals believe it is a bad thing - the decisions of various courts and the recent vote in Parliament corrects what was arguably the last legislated injustice against gay men and lesbians in civil society. And I would like to stress CIVIL here, because justice is still being denied lesbians and gay men in most religious institutions, including the Anglican Church of Canada. But before getting to that, I would like to discuss some of the other issues that have impacted on lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans people.

When I first came out, being homosexual was immoral, illegal and sinful. These were pre-feminist, pre Stonewall times. There were no organizations that provided support to lesbians and gay men, and those of us who grew up in small towns were particularly isolated and left to fend for ourselves as best we could. Some of us denied ourselves and lived straight. Some of us moved from the small towns to the anonymity of the big cities. Many of us walked away from our churches, temples and mosques because they taught us that we were intrinsically sinful. Some still do. There are not many options for salvation through religious institutions when you are told that homosexuality equals sin. Homophobia was rampant in society, especially within religious institutions, and most lesbians and gay men internalized this hatred. Society's hatred becomes self-hatred.

As a community, it has taken us a long time to organize against intolerance and to claim our full human rights, and an even longer time to return to our religious roots and claim what is rightfully ours or to grow new roots in sometimes not-so-fertile soil as out and proud lesbian and gay people. And I believe it is taking many of us even longer to recover from the grind of day-to-day discrimination and denial of our human rights.

Here are just a few results of life-long societal oppression and internalized homophobia on members of the gay community:

• Low self-esteem; self hatred; denial of self; hatred of other LGBT people
• Recent studies published in the American Journal of Public Health, and by the mental health charity known as Mind show that young gay men are much more likely than young straight men to take drugs, including ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana.
• According to SoberDykes - Women in Recovery from Substance Abuse, alcoholism is a fatal chronic illness affecting the lives of 20 to 30% of the homosexual population. What follows is a quote from their website: "Studies have found that 35% of lesbians had a history of excessive drinking, compared to only 5% of the heterosexual women in the sample, and approximately 30% of lesbians and gay men are addicted to drugs. The facts show that the homosexual community constitutes a high-risk population with regard to alcoholism and drug abuse. Some gays, lesbians and bisexuals resort to substances as a means to numb the feelings of being different, to relieve emotional pain or to reduce inhibitions about their sexual feelings."
• This likely also applies to tobacco addiction: recent studies have shown that oppressed populations have a higher percentage of smoking than the general population.
• SoberDykes goes on to state that more gays and lesbians have considered suicide an option than heterosexuals. According to both Canadian and American statistics, young gay men are six to fourteen times more likely to commit suicide than young heterosexual men, and may account for 30% of all completed suicides among teens, although they account for only about 10% of teens.

Until recently, lesbians and gay men rarely saw themselves realistically portrayed in literature, film, and the media. We have had no reflection in the mirror, no role models, and no heroes. If you are heterosexual and have never thought about what that means, it's because you never had to think about it. You grew up as part of a majority population that defined the norm as heterosexual. Imagine having to create your own norm, and knowing that it will be considered abnormal. Many LGBT people still live this all the time, every day.

Despite the important gains made, despite the changes in law, internalized and externalized homophobia still has an impact on our lives. Here is a quote from an article to be published in the fall 2005 Network News, the quarterly magazine of the Canadian Breast Cancer Network, entitled The Breastless Lesbian, written by Barbara Findlay, breast cancer survivor, feminist lawyer with disabilities, who was raised working class and Christian in a prairie city and was locked up in a mental hospital for being a lesbian in 1967. She does anti-oppression work in Vancouver:

"...homophobia in this culture has inexhaustible ways to blame lesbians for the harm that is done to us, in the name of normalcy... I was locked up by doctors as a teenager because I was a lesbian. The shrinks told me they were going to turn me into a normal 17 year old girl. That, too, is part of my fear: that this life of mine will be packaged by doctors into an account that is incomprehensible to me, but has implacable and terrifying consequences. Though it is almost 30 years since the DSM took homosexuality out of its catalogue of disorders, more than 30 years since the criminal code was amended to make gay sex legal, it remains the fact and the fear of us that we will be constructed as sick, deviant, immoral."

Violence against members of the LGBT community was and is still rampant: gay bashing and the murder of gays still take place in our society and around the world. If you thought to ask, most gay people would tell you that they have felt threatened at one or more times in their lives because they are gay or that they have been a victim of gay bashing or know someone in the community who was.

As EGALE stated in their Submissions to the Senate Legal Constitutional Affairs Committee in 2004 on Bill C-250, on Hate Propaganda, "Lesbian, gay and bisexual people are one of the chief targets of hate propaganda in Canada." EGALE went on to give just a few examples of hate propaganda directed towards lesbians and gays:

• an internet game that children can download called "Shoot the Fags!"
• a website that says Queers should be trampled into peat bogs, like the ancient Celts used to do

There are other examples of violence against gays and lesbians in Canada, including

• In 1994, gay Vancouver teacher David Curnick was stabbed 146 times
• In November 2001, gay Vancouver resident Aaron Webster was viciously beaten to death in Stanley Park
• In 2004, two lesbians were assaulted on the corner of St-Denis and Mont-Royal in Montreal for kissing in the street. A week later, the two returned with almost 100 supporters and a horde of media to kiss in public without fear of persecution
• In December 2002, the body of Robert Earl Leclair, 39, was found in his Kingston apartment. He was murdered.
• And in the same month, 35-year-old Christopher Raynsford was brutally beaten to death here in Ottawa.
• In a new book entitled Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada, Douglas Victor Janoff examines the roots of homophobic violence in Canada, the devastation of its breadth and the lackluster response to it by the justice system. In Pink Blood, Janoff documents more than 100 queer homicides in Canada.

You may ask why I have chosen to talk about violence against lesbians and gay men. First, because it is so endemic, and second, because I believe that continued discrimination in our religious institutions validates continued discrimination against us in the wider society. As Findlay says in her article, "Silence is one of the most pervasive and one of the most powerful forms of homophobia." Silence can also be permissive. We Anglicans often repeat together, "hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church." Often I wonder what the Church is saying - or not saying - to me as a lesbian.

The Anglican Church of Canada has recently indicated its willingness to reopen the residential schools agreement with the federal government. This agreement currently limits liability for compensation to native peoples for physical and sexual abuse. Now the Anglican Church is signaling that it may be open to claims for loss of language and culture.

I wonder how many more years it will be until the Anglican Church of Canada recognizes its role in taking away our birthright by denying our inherent worth as gay and lesbian children of God; by forcing us to remain in the closet or to leave the church to retain or regain our self-respect; by continuing to flog the dead horse of blessings of same sex unions when civil (and sometimes religious) same-gender marriage is the law of the land; and by contributing to a climate of intolerance and violence by signaling that lesbians and gay men are the other.

I want to return to the teaching of most Christian churches that being gay or lesbian is sinful. Perhaps you as a member of St. John, where lesbians and gay men have found a home that welcomes, supports and nurtures us, think that this is no longer the position of the Anglican Church of Canada. If you think this, think again. Hear what the Church is saying to lesbians and gay men:

In a 1979 statement on human sexuality by the Anglican Bishops of Canada, the Bishops stated:

"We accept all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, as equal before God; our acceptance of persons with homosexual orientation is not an acceptance of homosexual activity;
"We do not accept the blessing of homosexual unions;
"We will not call into question the ordination of a person who has shared with the bishop his/her homosexual orientation if there has been a commitment to the Bishop to abstain from sexual acts with persons of the same sex as part of the requirement."

In 1998, a majority of the bishops meeting at Lambeth rejected same-sex blessings, but they too committed themselves "to listen to the experience of homosexual persons" and affirmed "that all baptized, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ." As Garth pointed out to me, the 1979 statement by the Bishops was counterbalanced by his Synod 2004 resolution which affirmed "the sanctity and integrity of committed same sex relationships." Still, it is not clear how that will translate into action within Canada, and the 1979 Bishops' Statement still has an impact on our lives. Listen to the story of a lesbian Anglican priest which she bravely shared on the Diocese of New Westminster website section called Listening to Gay and Lesbian Christians:

This priest has just fallen in love with a woman with whom she wants to share her life. Here is what she says of her decision to leave the priesthood, "I could have stayed. My choices would have been a vow of celibacy or "keeping a low profile." Either way I believe I would be in conflict with myself, with God, and with all my beliefs about good news and new life. Perhaps someday the church won't ask me (or anyone else) to make the choice between vocation and who I am as a lesbian; a woman who can love and be loved by another. The sadness I felt about the decision to step outside of my vocation within the church in 1990 was very much offset by the peace I experienced through self-acceptance and the joy I experienced in the love I shared with my partner Kathy and our two children. The grief of not being able to be a priest continued in the midst of abundant love and freedom to celebrate who God created me to be." After the death of her partner, she once again was granted permission to take up her vocation. But, she states, "Unless the church moves to the acceptance of diversity and justice for all people I know that I will need to continue choosing between priesthood and love for another. I don't know where I will be led as my life unfolds. I know that my commitment is to be faithful to who I believe God has created me to be."

Recently the Anglican Church of Canada decided not to bless any more gay or lesbian relationships in response to criticism of the blessings of same-gender couples in the Diocese of New Westminster by others in the Church, especially in the South, specifically Africa and Asia. There is also is sharp division within the Canadian Church on this issue. A second reason is that everyone is afraid that the world-wide Church will fragment if more same-gender couples are blessed.

Again, what is the Church saying to lesbians and gay men? That a united world-wide Anglican Church is more important than justice and human rights? That it's okay for us to support national Anglican Churches that contribute to the often violent oppression of lesbian and gay men in those nations? That Northern criticism of Southern discrimination against LGBT peoples is racist, or politically incorrect, or amounts to cultural appropriation? That insisting that discrimination continue is just as morally correct as insisting that discrimination end?

It may seem to you that I have painted a negative picture of the gay community, but this was not my intent. Rather, I wanted to show the terrible emotional and psychological impact of homophobia. Indeed, our community is composed of strong, vibrant individuals living interesting and productive lives. Certainly you know this to be true of the gay and lesbian members of St. John.

Many of us have had to struggle, and there has been a cost to each and every one of us that heterosexuals know very little about. For example, how many heterosexual members of this parish are aware that it is hurtful to some - and perhaps many - lesbian and gay parishioners when heterosexual couples are married during the Sunday morning service? Imagine how you would feel if you were not able to marry here and were told that your relationship might be blessed five or ten years down the road, or perhaps not at all!

Part of our struggle has involved our search for God in homophobic religious environments. Many of us were - and still are - alienated from the religious institutions we were born into because they believe - and have taught us - that we are intrinsically sinful. For many, there will likely be no reconciliation during their lifetime. Many of us came to this parish and found a home here. But the safety of this home is not complete as long as the Anglican Church of Canada continues to discriminate. This is why some of those who have found sanctuary here eventually leave.

In closing, I would again like to quote from the New Westminster website, this time from the story of a gay man:

"I believe myself called over these past fifteen years to witness within the Anglican Church, my Church, to the realities of the lives of its faithful gay and lesbian members. We aren't outside to be welcomed or not, with or without conditions. We are already inside: full, baptized members of this Body. I don't find it easy to be out as a gay man in the Church, especially at this time when we are publicly demeaned by some of our fellow Anglicans. But, I often thank God that I was born when I was and that I have seen such tremendous change for the good. Who would have believed even 25 years ago the degree of acceptance of gay and lesbian people which we see today? This is a worldwide movement that I recognize as the work of the Holy Spirit, and I know it will continue. "I think it was Gregory Baum who said that change occurs when the Law of Love is found to be in conflict with social norms. Yet, I confess to being discouraged and fatigued at times - the opposition to us can be so bitter. I keep being thrown back on a spiritual realization from earlier in my coming out: one cannot count on human institutions, including churches, to deliver one's sense of worth or security. One can count only on God, from whom I'll continue to take sustenance, in the company of my life-partner, my families of choice and of origin, my faith companions," he concluded.

It will only be by working together - all children of God - lesbian, gay, bisexual, straight, transgendered - and by keeping our hearts and minds uncluttered that the Anglican Church in Canada will rise to the challenge to truly minister to all. Last week Rachel asked us to remember Jesus' question to his disciples: "who do you say that I am?" and the multiplicity of possible answers to that question. In light of Jesus' question, and in light of your answers, what do you want the Church to say to lesbians and gay men?

Thank you.