Reverend Brent Hawkes

I called my parents the night before to tell them that I loved them if anything happened and that they knew that I loved them. That Sunday morning we had services in the morning and the weddings were in the afternoon. And that Sunday morning bodyguards came to pick me up and they said, ‘You’ve gotta wear your [bulletproof] vest ’cause we’re going to drive you to church in a different route, just in case.’ The police said that there were people coming to kill me that day. And so they drove us to church by a different route, then whisked me into the church. I had to stay in my office until the 9 o’clock service, go out to do the service, then go right back into my office and stay there. Then, go out to do the 11 o’clock service, come right back into my office and stay there.

Frankly, we let our guard down a bit because at the 11 o’clock service, in the middle of the service, a woman came to the front; she was yelling and throwing pamphlets. I approached her very calmly and told her that it was a criminal offense in Canada to disrupt a religious worship service and that she needed to stop. She pushed me over and that was an assault. She was arrested and taken away. And so we were scared because if that happened at 11 o’clock [service] what’s going to happen at the weddings?

There were 50 police officers in the basement of the church. A thousand people came to the weddings; they were excited. Everybody had to be searched at the door. There were protesters and signs and yelling outside, and there were 80 media outlets from around the world—some of which for the very first time were covering a positive event in the lives of gays and lesbians. First time ever.

As soon as I walked into the sanctuary, people stood, applauded, and cheered because they knew it was a story. I reminded them that this was a worship service and that any disruption would be a criminal offense; people would be prosecuted and arrested. And so, we proceed with the weddings. At the end of the weddings, the way it works with the Publication of the Banns is—after all the usual signing and stuff—I signed and issued the marriage certificates instead of the State, instead of the City Hall. I issued the marriage certificates to the lesbian couple and the gay male couple and declared them married and the place went nuts. It was like cheering and cheering and cheering and cheering.

And all the papers had the same picture the next day: Me in my robes and the lesbian couple and the gay male couple all standing together and all of us just beaming.

And like I said, I couldn’t leave my home for two weeks without a bodyguard. I got a phone call at home with the message: ‘People like you need their heads cut off.’