It’s Pride Week in Tantramar, and this past Sunday the Sackville United Church hosted an event to celebrate its anniversary as an affirming ministry, one that proactively includes and affirms 2SLGBTQ+ people. But when minister Lloyd Bruce posted a video showing the preparation for the event online, he noticed a lot of negative and sometimes hate-filled comments start to pour in.
Bruce says anti-LGBTQ commenting on the church’s social media is a relatively new phenomenon, which he worries has been spurred on by the New Brunswick government’s efforts to amend its own education policy 713. “My fear is that some of the conservative hateful voices have been given license by some of the political forces that are at work,” says Bruce.
This summer, New Brunswick education minister Bill Hogan changed its policy to require teachers to deny requests from students under 16 for use of preferred names or pronouns, unless they have consent from their parents. The move sparked protests by a number of education and health groups, but also support from groups such as the west coast conservative Christian Action4Canada.
