Another update on the story from Toronto and the members of the Highfield Road Gospel Hall church who allegedly targeted two gay men – a couple – and the neighbours who came to their defence. The couple, 45 year old Blair Chiasson and his partner 47 year old Paul Collins, say they have never felt targeted and that the parishioners publically preached on the street long prior to the arrival of the two 13 years ago. Chiasson says the parishioners are a “part of the neighbourhood” who are exercising their right to free expression and underlined that the neighbours who responded “overreacted.” Said Chiasson “we don’t even know the people that started this, so the people who apparently our defenders, we don’t even know who they are.” He added “I don’t like how the whole issue is being distorted. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. I just want this to stop. Stop discussing it. Stop talking about it. It’s really kind of spiralling out of control.
If anything, the incident seems to serve as another reminder that in the neither world of the internet, nothing is ever as it seems. Dan Savage – whom I loathe – started the scenario wherein the members of the Gospel Hall congregation attacked the gay couple, employing the most incendiary rhetoric, Savage saying that “O They Will Know We Are Christians ... by the people we intimidate and harass. Christofacists in Toronto protest in front of the home a gay couple – not only because the couple did anything in particular to the church. But the couple exists ...” Savage’s attempt at social commentary might have been better served if he attempted to access the facts, or at least apply a critical analysis to what he watched online second-hand thousands of miles away.
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