Montréal and Niagara are the two latest Anglican churches to approve the blessing of same-sex couples within the past month, defying a national decree to disallow such blessings.

The Canadian Anglican Church decided in June that same-sex blessings are compatible with core church doctrine, but decreed that they be banned anyway. This mixed message has caused a bizarre rift in the church, with several priests being ejected for blessing couples. That may sound a little drastic, but I’m assured that there’s nothing quite like blessing a loving couple within the parish community to undermine years of goodwill, charity, and other selfless services to the Church.

• Niagara Diocese Approves Blessings For Gay Couples [Anglican Journal]
• Montreal Anglicans vote to bless same-sex union [Globe and Mail]

• Alvaro Orozco, the refugee who was denied Canadian citizenship because he didn’t look “gay enough” is still facing deportation to Nicaragua where homosexuality is illegal. The application to re-open his case was dismissed, but there’s still a chance he could file a standard application for immigration from within Canada on humanitarian grounds. Sadly, pretending to be gay to obtain refugee status is not uncommon, but the circumstances under which Orozco’s application was denied were downright silly.
• Niagara Falls officials have replaced the Pride flag that mysteriously vanished less than four hours after its raising ceremony. Thankfully they have “some ideas” to make sure this one stays put. At the top of the list: piping in Kylie Minogue to create an appropriate anti-heterosexual radius.
• The City of Ottawa has adopted policies ensuring that Capital Xtra, a gay community newspaper, cannot be censored from city community centres. The paper was removed from a public facility after Greg Evans, a local man, complained that his son could have seen it at basketball practice. Though the paper’s censorship was illegal, I can attest to the dangers of gay community newspapers: The last time I picked one up, I got a paper cut.
• The federal conservatives’ scrapping of the gay-friendly Court Challenges Program has turned out to be illegal. According to a report by the official languages commissioner, removing public funding to challenge unconstitutional laws violated Officials Languages Act. The government, in the interests of transparency and accountability, has not responded.

Well, have a great weekend kiddos!

Officials and community members in Niagara Falls have been left scratching their heads after the first-ever gay pride flag to be flown over city hall went missing a mere four hours after its raising ceremony.

So far, there’s no word on what happened to the flag or if it has been replaced. Although, after years of following these sorts of stories, I think it’s clear who took it: Mutant seagulls.

• Pride flag missing from city hall [Niagara Falls Review]
• Rainbow flag rises above city hall [St. Catherines Standard]