Prince Albert, 10 years after Canada legalizes gay marriage

“It’s an affirmation of love and it doesn’t matter who’s in love, they have the right to express that in ways that are legal in this province. I think that would be the major argument,” he said.

“The counterargument that well ‘gay marriage would take away from heterosexual marriage’ and most people said ‘no, a gay couple getting married at Wesley isn’t going to change the way my marriage is’, which I think, coming from the older generation, was a very powerful affirmation.”

Despite their decision, so far Wesley has only conducted one gay ceremony and hosted another by a guest minister.

“I suspect in Prince Albert there isn’t a lot of request for that—unfortunately. I think people tend to be more reticent in exposing who they are,” he said.

Thompson has spent the last 10 years Wesley United Church and said they view the decision to allow gay marriage as a positive thing and welcome any person of any gender or identity. This is proven by Wesley United Church in the choice of its religious leader—Thompson himself is gay and living with his partner.

He said their church openly accepts the love between two people and celebrate it.

“I really enjoy [gay marriage ceremonies]. To me it was in some ways more profound as a wedding than some of the weddings we do in the church with heterosexual couples because it meant something,” he explained.

Steven Block-Ring married his husband Travis at the Union Centre in Prince Albert five years ago.

He believes one reason there are so few church ceremonies for gay couples is because of past rejections.

“Especially being gay, for quite a while there you start feeling ostracized, so you tend to have this feeling you‘re going to be struck down as soon as you walk through those doors and when gay marriage came out it was quite clear they weren’t going to force churches to marry us,” Block-Ring said, citing his own former church as unbending and lacking acceptance.

“There’s a lot of [gay couples] that have faith and that do go to church, but a lot of us feel that we aren’t accepted there.”

He said people don’t have to accept his lifestyle, but just accept that fact that he and his partner want to be loved and they “just want to live a life like everybody else lives a life”. He continued on to say the world is composed and thrives on various opinions, but when those opinions infringe on others’ rights is when it becomes wrong.

“People think that being gay is about having sex, and orgies, and drugs and parties—it’s not about that … we just want to be a person like everyone else. We just want to be able to show case our love without society damning us for it. We want to be able to walk down the street without something being thrown or an insult being thrown.”

For Block-Ring, it was go big or go home for the wedding that included 250 guests and a 17 person wedding party.

“When we were planning our wedding [Travis] wanted small and I wanted it to be big. The reason I wanted big was not to throw it in people’s face, but to say ‘hey you know what, it’s legal and I’m going to do it the right way,’” he said.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. His mother’s ex-husband, who raised him since he was a child, kept changing his mind on whether he would attend for fear of being disowned by his parents. But, when the day came down Block-Ring’s father was there and standing proud.

Block-Ring said he’s lucky to have such a supporting family who embraced his life fully. He got emotional when mentioning the care of his mother who helped “give him away” at the wedding.

“She’s been there for every hard time,” he said, continuing on to explain how positive she was when he told her he was gay and how much she said she couldn't wait for more grandchildren.

And there were hard times. Block-Ring grew was bullied growing up in Prince Albert, being called a “faggot” and threatened to a point when tried to commit suicide. He now uses those life experiences to persevere and teach. He is a motivational speaker through the school systems, educates gay people about the risks of HIV and disease and speaks to students at SIAST about coming out.

For him, it’s all about living a full life.

“It’s love just like any other love. It’s two consensual who just want to be able to be with one another and be legally recognized … if he wasn’t my legal spouse he doesn’t have any say what happens to me medically, in terms of anything with our finances or anything,” he said.

Block-Ring even joked his husband always says “gay men deserve to be just as miserable as straight couples.”

For the future he hopes for society to come together and find equality on every platform of life including gender, race and gay marriage.

“I think people just need to realize that what I’m doing isn’t hurting anybody. I’m not out there murdering anybody or hurting anybody or robbing anything or any type of thing. I’m just loving my partner,” he said.

“I just want people just to realize we bleed the same, we laugh the same, we cry the same, we all have feelings, we all just want to be loved and we want to show case that love.”

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84

by Sarah Stone

Prince Albert, 10 years after Canada legalizes gay marriage

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