Christians to offer apology at Gay Pride Parade

Advertisement

Advertise with us

"I'm sorry."

Read this article for free:


By clicking the button above, an account will be created and you will begin to receive some of our recommended newsletters. You may opt out of any newsletter by visiting your Email and Communication Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of any email.

or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks. After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/05/2013 (4894 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I’m sorry.”

That’s what a group of Winnipeg Christians will be saying from the sidelines on June 2 during the annual Gay Pride Parade.

“Christians have caused a great deal of harm and alienation for people in the LGBT community,” says Jamie Arpin-Ricci, pastor of Little Flowers Church in the city’s West End and organizer of the Winnipeg I’m Sorry campaign.

“As Christians we have done wrong, and we want to say sorry,” he says. “This is one way of making an unqualified apology and publicly committing ourselves to do better.”

The Winnipeg I’m Sorry event is part of an international I’m Sorry movement started by the Marin Foundation of Chicago, a non-profit group that works to build bridges between the LGBT community and the church.

Christians who participate in the Foundation’s I’m Sorry campaign take the “I’m Sorry pledge,” committing themselves to “listening to the stories of others and seeking to understand,” striving to “make things better for the LBGT community,” and affirming “God’s love for everyone.”

Since starting at Chicago’s Gay Pride Parade in 2010, the I’m Sorry campaign has expanded to Pride Parades in 20 other cities in the U.S., England, Scotland, Guatemala and Canada.

The first I’m Sorry campaign in Canada was held last year in Winnipeg, when about a dozen people from two congregations held signs offering their apologies.

Response to last year’s apology “was humbling,” says Arpin-Ricci, who also helped organize that I’m Sorry event. “Hundreds of people marching in the parade stopped to thank us, hug us, take pictures and ask questions.”

Most moving for him, he says, were those who shouted out: “We forgive you!”

As he looks ahead to this year’s I’m Sorry campaign, Arpin-Ricci acknowledges not all Christians would agree with their effort. But, he says, even those who believe homosexuality is a sin could still agree that the church has treated gay people badly over the centuries — including “demonizing people’s character and intentions.”

Plus, he adds, the I’m Sorry campaign isn’t about expressing a theological stance on homosexuality.

“More than anything, all we want to do is show love and respect for all people, regardless of orientation, as Christ would love them.”

For Jonathan Niemczak, president of the Pride Winnipeg Festival, the I’m Sorry campaign is a welcome addition to the event.

“I think it’s great,” he says, adding it’s “an amazing campaign.”

What Niemczak particularly likes about the I’m Sorry campaign is how it presents a different view of Christianity to the LGBT community.

Most gay people only experience the church as “blasting out hate,” he says. “It’s nice to see that there are some people in the Christian community who are trying to help us.”

In addition to the I’m Sorry campaign, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg hold a service at Memorial Park at 10 a.m. prior to the Pride Parade.

People who want to participate in this year’s I’m Sorry campaign are asked to attend a briefing and BBQ on Saturday, June 1, 6 p.m. For more information, call info@littleflowers.ca or visit the Facebook page (search for I’m Sorry or go to https://www.facebook.com/events/443851639037353).

jdl562000@yahoo.com

The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba through our Religion in the News project. This reporting continues because readers like you step forward to fund it.

Donate now to support our reporting on religion.

Your donation is eligible for a charitable tax receipt. BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER

John Longhurst

John Longhurst
Faith reporter

John Longhurst has been writing for Winnipeg's faith pages since 2003. He also writes for Religion News Service in the U.S., and blogs about the media, marketing and communications at Making the News.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Report Error Submit a Tip

The Free Press acknowledges the financial support it receives from members of the city’s faith community, which makes our coverage of religion possible.

More Stories

New chapter for Yellowquill University College

Tory McNally 7 minute read Preview

New chapter for Yellowquill University College

Tory McNally 7 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Sometimes, a milestone is about much more than a degree. It is about opportunity, recognition and the doors that open for the people who come next.

Yellowquill University College reached a historic milestone on Oct. 1, when new Manitoba legislation came into effect formally recognizing the institution within the province’s post-secondary education system and granting it authority to award degrees.

Established in 1984, Yellowquill is now Manitoba’s first fully recognized First Nations-owned and operated post-secondary institution with degree-granting authority.

It is an achievement worth celebrating, not only for Yellowquill and the communities it serves, but also for what it represents about education, career development and the future of Manitoba’s workforce.

Read
Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Women wearing appropriate clothes to gym not asking for men’s opinions

Jen Zoratti 3 minute read Preview

Women wearing appropriate clothes to gym not asking for men’s opinions

Jen Zoratti 3 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Prior to last Saturday, I was the blissful sort of person who could say “who is that, again?” when I heard the name Shane Gillis.

Now, I know him as the comedian who said “women just dress like whores now” at the gym during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live — a show that fired him in 2019, by the way, for being racist and homophobic on a podcast yet continues to invite him back as a host for some reason.

Gillis also likened women’s short shorts (the kind one might wear to lift weights, say) to neon fishing lures.

“And don’t look. You’re not allowed to look. For real, don’t look, because they are filming,” he said.

Read
Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Carney’s ‘counterweight’ summit strategy

David McLaughlin 5 minute read Preview

Carney’s ‘counterweight’ summit strategy

David McLaughlin 5 minute read Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Modern summit diplomacy had very inauspicious beginnings. Winston Churchill is widely credited with coining the phrase “summit” in 1950 to describe a conference of global leaders. But it was another British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, who initiated the first actual summit meeting 12 years earlier — with Adolf Hitler, no less.

It didn’t go well.

Over a one-month period, the two leaders met three times over the fate of Czechoslovakia. Hitler threatened war. Chamberlain threatened appeasement. Guess who won?

Chamberlain was so desperate for a peace deal and so convinced he alone could convince Hitler, that he swallowed his inhibitions and flew in an airplane for the very first time in his life. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” he told reporters, explaining his tenacious summit activity. Skeptical of the spectacle, British Foreign Office wags quietly amended it to, “If at first you don’t concede, fly, fly again.”

Read
Yesterday at 2:01 AM CDT

Faces of the aboriginal community

31 minute read Preview

Faces of the aboriginal community

31 minute read Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012

MatonabbeeBorn in 1737 at the Prince of Wales fort, he was taken in by the chief factor to live there after his father died. He became a "leading Indian" of Churchill and became the middleman between the Hudson's Bay Co. traders and the aboriginal people. He guided Samuel Hearne to the Coppermine River in the Northwest Territories from 1770 to 1772 and was credited with making the expedition a success because he helped the explorers live off the land. He committed suicide in 1782 after he witnessed the French destroy the fort.

 

Chief PeguisHe was born in 1774 near present-day Sault Ste. Marie before leading his people west to settle at Netley Creek. He was a friend to the Selkirk Settlers and warned Governor Semple about plans by the Nor'westers to destroy the Red River Settlement, advice that Semple ignored, costing him and 20 others their lives at the Battle of Seven Oaks. Peguis later helped Lord Selkirk make treaties with the Cree and Saulteaux and was presented with a treaty medal for his help. He later was given an annual pension from the Hudson's Bay Co. A missionary persuaded Peguis and some of his people to settle in the St. Peter's area north of present-day Selkirk. After being baptized into the Anglican Church, he took the name William King, and his children used the last name Prince. He died in 1864.

 

Read
Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012

Bayer Canada begins construction on new R&D facility in St. B

Gabrielle Piché 3 minute read Preview

Bayer Canada begins construction on new R&D facility in St. B

Gabrielle Piché 3 minute read Friday, Oct. 16, 2026

Instead of canola on Friday, there was sod.

But in two years’ time, by current estimates, the bare plot of land in a St. Boniface industrial park will hold canola samples and seeds for testing.

Bayer Canada officially broke ground on a 60,000-square-foot research and development facility Friday morning.

“It’s about bringing new and better innovation to farmers,” said Kacy Perry, Bayer Crop Science Canada’s country division head.

Read
Friday, Oct. 16, 2026

Granite Curling Club wants judge to stop work on housing project, review city’s decisions

Erik Pindera 4 minute read Preview

Granite Curling Club wants judge to stop work on housing project, review city’s decisions

Erik Pindera 4 minute read Friday, Oct. 16, 2026

The Granite Curling Club has filed a new court action asking a judge to review and quash City of Winnipeg decisions on a controversial project that would construct a 110-unit housing complex on its parking lot — and to issue an injunction stopping work for now.

The new notice of application, filed in the Court of King’s Bench on Wednesday, comes as a judge mulls his decision on an earlier court application from the club over how the city moved forward on approving the development.

The developer has since begun what it calls “investigative work” at the site, conducting some digging to prepare for a heritage resources impact assessment that will determine whether the area has archeological significance, the chief executive of the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corp. Inc. 2.0 said earlier this week.

Work at the site prompted the club’s lawyers to file the new application, which will have its first hearing on Oct. 26.

Read
Friday, Oct. 16, 2026