Protesters target Toronto MP over gay marriage
CTV.ca News Staff


About 50 to 60 protesters who support same-sex marriage picketed the office of a prominent backbench MP in Toronto on Saturday.

The protesters want Liberal Dennis Mills defeated in the June 28 election.

Mills, who has represented Toronto-Danforth since 1988, has said he supports the traditional definition of marriage.

Mills is being challenged for the riding by NDP Leader Jack Layton. Toronto-Danforth has a sizable gay population.


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all these folkz need to just get over it, and stop holding something made-up so tight... you would think the world was going to end//-..


Episcopal civil union liturgy draws anger


BOSTON, MA, Jun. 19 (UPI) -- Conservative church members are denouncing new guidelines from the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont for performing civil union ceremonies for same-sex couples.

The diocese unveiled the new guidelines for civil union ceremonies Friday, drawing swift denunciation from conservatives in the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, the Washington Post reported.

Episcopal priests in Vermont have performed civil union ceremonies since 2000, when the state became the first in the nation to allow civil unions, giving gay couples most of the legal protections of marriage. But conservatives in the church say they are upset the new guidelines allow a liturgy closely resembling that of a wedding.

"My understanding is that what Vermont has done comes awfully close to matrimony, and to put a same-sex blessing in that category is horrifying," Cynthia P. Brust, a spokeswoman for the American Anglican Council, told the Post. "We have had the fabric of Anglican Communion torn to pieces, and I do not understand bishops that have not shown more restraint."


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Archbishop of Canterbury breaks silence on same-sex marriage
 By Ivan H. Golden
Staff Writer


GREENWICH -- In his first public comments on the same-sex marriage controversy that has divided the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams expressed solidarity last night with the American Episcopal Church. But he stopped short of taking sides in the divisive issue.

"I'm well aware of the crossroads at which we stand," Williams said to an audience of more than 400 people during a fund-raiser at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich.

Williams said he wanted to make two points about the controversy: First, he said, "the present difficulties would feel a lot more difficult were it not for the immense love and generosity shown to me by (the American Episcopal Church)."

Second, Williams said his experience on Sept. 11, 2001 -- when he was caught in lower Manhattan only blocks from the World Trade Center -- had "made it difficult to feel estranged from the struggles of the Episcopal Church in the United States."