TENS of thousands of people will converge today on Brighton for the city’s annual gay pride event  – one of the biggest celebrations of its kind in Europe. Theme of this weekend’s gathering is Pride and Not Prejudice.
Smaller numbers will also attend the first gay pride event in New Westminster, British Columbia, today called Diversity: Celebrating our Chosen Families. And it has landed a 17-year-old teenager in deep trouble with New Westminster’s First Presbyterian Church.
After Tory Inglis posed for a newspaper photograph flagging the city’s pride celebration, the teen was accused by her church minister of promoting “an improper lifestyle”.
Basically, they told me that I wasn’t being a positive role model for the youth in the church and the younger children, and that I was promoting a sexual lifestyle.
Tory added:
Tory Inglis and her mum Karen
I was one of the leaders of the junior youth group, and it’s not like every week I went up in front of the youth and said, ‘All right, let’s talk about how I’m gay this week’.
She knew the church was against gay marriage, but said she didn’t think her posing for the photograph would create such a stir.
I was so upset. I was crying during points of the meeting. I’ve gone there ever since I was born. I was baptized there.
So it’s really hard to hear from this place where I was pretty much raised that I was now different.
The minister told her the church would prefer if she withdraw from the group that organized the Pride events, Tory said, but she refused and withdrew her membership from the church instead.
Above all, I want to promote peace and love and acceptance. And in a place that condemns people for loving, I would much rather be in a place that accepts people for who they are.
Meanwhile, we understand that the newly metrosexualised Stephen “Birdshit” Green who has ditched the beard, and has applied lashings of Grecian 2000 to disguise the gay gray, is set to “witness” at the Brighton event, along with a rag-tag of his joyless supporters – including, we learned from a reliable source, three employees of a large local supermarket, who are refusing to go into work today, saying it was their Christian duty to demonstrate against the Brighton event.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
August 7th, 2010 at 8:32 am
They’re going to hate themselves into oblivion, which is just fine by me.
August 7th, 2010 at 9:12 am
Glad that Tory Inglis had the good sense to withdraw from the church. If all those that were brow-beaten in this way did the same the world would be a happier place.
August 7th, 2010 at 9:38 am
Talking of “Christian love”, have a look at this:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn.....eodicy.php
Sadly, Pastor Doug Humphrey has now “protected his tweets”. Can’t think why!
(PS: He can’t even spell “omniscient”!!)
August 7th, 2010 at 9:38 am
The link to The Montreal Gazette article states that Tory Inglis will look for a new church this autumn. Why?
According to the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s Social Action Handbook, “The church does not limit the roles of its members on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
That’s the official line but there’s obviously an undercurrent of bigotry that head office can’t suppress. Why would she go back for more of the same?
She seems only to be questioning her church, not her religion.
August 7th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Broadsword, it’s the story of ‘Goldie-Flocks and the Three Altars’
“This church hates ME, but this church doesn’t hate THEM, this one is JUST RIGHT.”
Going door to door trying to find a version of The One True God that agrees 100% with everything you do is a bit daft, just sit at home and talk to yourself in the mirror. How can you say you believe in a God when you’re just going to keep hanging up on him and redailing until an omnipotent being agrees you’re the one that’s right?
August 7th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
She is looking for another church, it looks as if I spoke too soon. As Broadsword said, Why? Maybe she will eventually realise that they are all as bad as one another and that she can get along fine without them.
August 7th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Very well put, Sean. Shopping around for a god in one’s own image.
I would like to feel sympathy for Tory but if she is looking for a community to belong to there are plenty others.
August 7th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Goldie-Flocks and the Three Altars
Thanks for that, Sean.
I suppose I’ll spot this phenomenon more often now you’ve given me a name for it.
August 7th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Seems it isn’t quite as easy for Christian bigots to victimise their flock as before. The Minister should be the one to be kicked out. That apart, I hope Tory and her parents, and I respect their resolve, might examine just what they are involved in whatever the church. Bigotry flows like a sewer whatever the official church position. The stench eventually gets in the nostrils.
August 7th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
“Shopping for God” sounds like a great web-site to me! You fill in a questionnaire and the system tells you which religion is most suitable for you. Why bother going from one ‘holy’ place to another, wasting time only to find out you’re not wanted for whatever reason.
As for Stephen, there’s a gay happening in Amsterdam today, didn’t anyone tell him? He could have teamed up with his Dutch soul-mates in hate.
August 7th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Well there is the belief quiz to do the shopping for religion for you.
August 7th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Erp: I decided to do the belief quiz. I came out 100 per cent secular humanist. Whew! I was really worried in case it indicated I should be a Roman Catholic or whatever.
August 7th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Erp/Broga
I got 100% SH as well.
As a lifelong heathen my pride is still intact and I haven’t shamed my father.
August 8th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Yes I got 100% SH too but considering what the questions were it would be something of a surprise to get anything else really. You have to watch out for the questions where you have to untick the answers that you don’t want rather than tick the ones that you do, otherwise those questions would show up as the complete reverse of what you actually believe.
August 8th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Broadsword says: “The link to The Montreal Gazette article states that Tory Inglis will look for a new church this autumn. Why?” Yes, quite. She’s made the right decision to withdraw from her church rather than the pride group, but then, not realising that the attitude that has caused her to do this is endemic in most religion, she seeks to place herself in a similar position. I thought she’d have learned her lesson. But, then, you have to take into account parental pressure, I suppose. Some cultures take it as a given that you go to church Sundays.
August 8th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Stonyground: I wondered why they did that with the ticks. Being a religious site was that intended to confuse? Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get me.
I see Papa has upset the Scots by refusing to address their parliament. They have upset me by asking him. Papa has also upset Mr Charles Windsor by not giving him a separate meeting just like he is meeting Charles’ mama. Meanwhile, Papa is to address the Westminster Outfit. The way he accepts and refuses invitations you would think he had nothing to be ashamed off.