“I couldn’t get down on my knees these days to save my life.”A comment that had me bursting out in laughter — in church.Because it was Pride Parade Day, you know, and this gay guy was elderly — elderly, I say — leaning heavily on his cane. And I thought he was making a ribald joke. But no, he was referring to the lack of pews at the non-denominational Metropolitan Community Church on Simpson Ave., to which the church on Church St. worship service had hastily repaired on Sunday because of the deluge outside, washing away the folding chairs and tent stage that had been set up in the heart of Toronto’s Gay Village.How easily we misconstrue.Amid the revelry and the colourful floats, the balloons and thumping music, the glittery drag queens and underwear-clad Adonis men, I went to the service anticipating reflection and perhaps some spiritual direction for a community that has suffered grievously this past year with confirmation that eight of their own, at least, had fallen victim to a serial murderer, a diabolical individual who had preyed on gay males right in the heart of their downtown business and pleasure colony.Just as the community had believed for ever so long, their concerns dismissed by the police chief and the original task force assembled to investigate the disappearance of several men.The policing failure is not so simple or tone-deaf as some have angrily, or sadly, declared. But colossal failure it was, all the same. And lives were lost because the gay community was not put on alert. Shades of the Balcony Rapist investigation from the mid-’80s, in this same general area, where women who fit the victim profile were not told of a sexual predator, so that they could take steps to protect themselves. In that case, police had no doubt they were looking for a particular assailant with a specific M.O. but kept that information close to their vests, ultimately successfully sued by Jane Doe.Yet at the MCC, there w ...
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