Human Rights Work
Since the early 1970s, the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto has been involved in advocating for human rights. In 1981, Reverend Dr. Brent Hawkes who represented MCC Toronto joined the LGBTQ+ community and allies in protesting against police brutality and “Operation Soap”, the bathhouse raids by the Metropolitan Toronto Police. Rev. Hawkes went on a 25-day hunger strike calling on the City of Toronto to investigate the bathhouse raids and the relations between the police and the LGBTQ+ community.
Eight months later, Toronto City Council released Out of the Closet: study of the relations between the homosexual community and the police: a report to Mayor Arthur Eggleton and the City Council of Toronto by Arnold Bruner also known as The Bruner Report.
MCC Toronto also established the Christian Social Action Committee, was a member of the Coalition of Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario, and the Toronto Gay Policing Committee. Rev. Hawkes was a Board of Director member of Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere (EGALE) and the Survey Committee.
In 2022, the Paul Austin Human Rights Centre opened to expand MCC Toronto’s human rights work and become a space for community collaborations. To learn more, you can visit their website at: https://www.mcctoronto.com/hrw/
The Triangle Program
The Triangle Program is Canada’s first and only high school for 2SLGBTQ+ students established in 1995 in partnership with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto.
LGBTQ+ Refugee Program
In 2007, the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto established the LGBTQ+ Refugee Program. MCC Toronto was the only exclusive LGBTQ+ Sponsorship Agreement Holder with the Federal Government in 2013. They also advocate on behalf of participants through the Canadian Rainbow Coalition for Refugee and Canadian Council for Refugees. As of 2023, MCC Toronto has served over 8,000+ asylum seekers from different countries such as Nigeria, Turkey, and Afghanistan.
https://www.mcctoronto.com/lgbtq-refugee-programs/
Marriage Equality
The Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto was at the forefront of fighting for marriage equality in Canada in 2000. In December 2000, Rev. Hawkes read the first “banns”, the old Christian tradition of giving public notice of people’s intent to marry. If banns are read on three Sundays before the wedding, the couple can be legally married. Each Sunday they were read and there were objections by fundamentalists, but they were dismissed, and the banns were read for the third time.
On January 14, 2001, MCC Toronto’s Reverend Dr. Brent Hawkes legally married two couples, Ann and Elaine Vautour, and Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell, the first legalized same-sex marriages in the world. However, the City of Toronto refused to recognize and register the couples’ marriages, which led to a court battle that was eventually resolved in 2003 making Ontario the first place in North America to recognize equal marriage and the third jurisdiction in the world.
Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto (MCCT) Marriages of: Ann & Elaine Vautour, Kevin Bourassa & Joe Varnell from The ArQuives on Vimeo.
Interview with Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes on the first legal same-sex marriages in Ontario from The ArQuives on Vimeo.
These clips are from the original footage for the documentary film series From Criminality to Equality: 40 years of lesbian and gay movement history in Canada from 1969 to 2009 (2009) produced and directed by Nancy Nicol. This series includes The End of Second Class (2006), a documentary on the fight for marriage equality and its passing as legislation in Canada.
If you would like to learn more, you can visit The ArQuives website and request the documentary film series and materials related to the films found in the Nancy Nicol fonds.