Free Republic

On Gay Pride Day today, St. John's Anglican Church on Elgin Street will use its main Sunday service to express solidarity with gay, lesbian and transgendered people. For Rector Garth Bulmer, that solidarity is something that St. John's expresses all year round -- and has for years. "We respect gay and lesbian people and make them, in every sense, full members of this congregation," he says. "Jesus said we must offer the full covenant to everyone, and that's what we're trying to do." This is no new policy at St. John's. As far back as 1997, the congregation declared itself...

Sexual predator was barred in 1994 from holding leadership role in church The bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa is considering whether to enforce a 10-year-old ban prohibiting a convicted pedophile from playing the organ and conducting an adult choir at a downtown church. Bishop Peter Coffin said he is pondering what to do with John Gallienne, a sexual predator and former choirmaster barred by senior Anglican officials in 1994 from holding a leadership position in the church, but who is now an organist at Elgin Street's St. John the Evangelist. "I just might mull it over for a...