{"id":141696,"date":"2017-12-26T00:39:48","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T05:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=141696"},"modified":"2025-01-29T19:42:28","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T00:42:28","slug":"brent-hawkes-pastor-who-officiated-canadas-first-legal-gay-marriages-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/26\/brent-hawkes-pastor-who-officiated-canadas-first-legal-gay-marriages-retires\/","title":{"rendered":"Brent Hawkes, pastor who officiated Canada&#8217;s first legal gay marriages, retires"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_141736\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-141736\" style=\"width: 642px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/642px-Rev._Dr._Brent_Hawkes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-141736\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/642px-Rev._Dr._Brent_Hawkes.jpg\" alt=\"The well-known Toronto pastor who officiated Canada's first legally recognized same-sex marriages is delivered his final sermon Sunday. (Photo by Marc Lostracco, CC BY-SA 2.0)\" width=\"642\" height=\"899\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/642px-Rev._Dr._Brent_Hawkes.jpg 642w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/642px-Rev._Dr._Brent_Hawkes-214x300.jpg 214w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 642px) 100vw, 642px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-141736\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The well-known Toronto pastor who officiated Canada&#8217;s first legally recognized same-sex marriages is delivered his final sermon Sunday. (<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=22406258\" target=\"_blank\">Photo by Marc Lostracco<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/\" target=\"_blank\">CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>TORONTO\u2014The well-known Toronto pastor who officiated Canada&#8217;s first legally recognized same-sex marriages is delivered his final sermon Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Rev. Brent Hawkes, who is also known for officiating Jack Layton&#8217;s state funeral in 2011, is retiring after serving as senior pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position:absolute;left:-99195px;\"> buy lexapro online <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalconferenceonems.com\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/png\/lexapro.html\">https:\/\/nationalconferenceonems.com\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/png\/lexapro.html<\/a> no prescription pharmacy <\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>In 2001, the openly gay pastor married two same-sex couples using a legal loophole: the ancient Christian tradition of publishing the banns of marriage.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, same-sex couples could not obtain marriage licences from municipal clerks, but the Ontario Marriage Act allowed couples to be granted a licence if their names were published and read out at church for three Sundays in a row.<\/p>\n<p>But when the couples tried to have the marriages registered with the province, it refused.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position:absolute;left:-99195px;\"> buy bactrim online <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalconferenceonems.com\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/png\/bactrim.html\">https:\/\/nationalconferenceonems.com\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/png\/bactrim.html<\/a> no prescription pharmacy <\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The couples and the church sued, and the Ontario Court of Appeal eventually recognized their unions in a 2003 ruling that paved the way for same-sex marriage to be legalized across the country.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position:absolute;left:-99195px;\"> buy flexeril online <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalconferenceonems.com\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/png\/flexeril.html\">https:\/\/nationalconferenceonems.com\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/png\/flexeril.html<\/a> no prescription pharmacy <\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Hawkes was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2007 for his work advocating for gay rights.<\/p>\n<p>He will be succeeded as senior pastor by Rev. Jeff Rock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TORONTO\u2014The well-known Toronto pastor who officiated Canada&#8217;s first legally recognized same-sex marriages is delivered his final sermon Sunday. Rev. Brent &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":141736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,9094,16],"tags":[14458,4930,5790],"class_list":["post-141696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-human-interest","category-news","tag-brent-hawkes","tag-gay-marriage","tag-lgbtq","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286863,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141696\/revisions\/286863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}