Posted: Apr 25, 2021 3:00 AM CT | Last Updated: April 25
(Clockwise from top left) Carol LaFayette-Boyd, Devon Clunis, Pamela Parker, Rosalind Smith, the Pilgrim Baptist Church and Christine Lwanga all broke barriers on the Prairies.(Submitted)
This story is part of the Black on the Prairies project, a collection of articles, personal essays, images and more, exploring the past, present and future of Black life in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
They re Black. They re trailblazers. They re Prairie firsts.
These Black Prairie firsts sit among the leaders that have shattered glass ceilings in their respective professions. These stellar Canadians and one long-standing church have not only put down roots across the Prairie landscape, they have made deep imprints in Prairie history.
(Regina Victory Church/Facebook)
LGBT activists are accusing a Regina pastor of spreading hate towards the gay and transgender communities.
In a sermon posted to Facebook and YouTube, Pastor Terry Murphy of Victory Church made multiple comments that many are calling hateful.
“It started maybe in the 70’s or 80’s. We had the start of the cultural push to normalize homosexuality. On TV shows, in the movies, in the media, everywhere. Normalizing this behaviour that, before then, was not considered normal. (It) was considered abnormal … The normalizing of this behaviour has caused chaos in a lot of ways,” he said, among other things, in the March 7 sermon.
By Josh Sigurdson
Mar 14, 2021 1:02 PM
Members of Regina’s LGTBQ2S+ community gathered in front of Regina Victory Church Sunday, a week after its pastor delivered a rather controversial sermon.
During a sermon titled “Raising Godly Children”, Pastor Terry Murphy spoke about a statistic showing nearly 16 percent of Gen Z respondents identify as LGBT. He went on to say that normalizing being gay is like normalizing pedophilia.
Event organizer Nathan Labatt says he wanted to make sure everyone who was upset by the speech had their voice heard.
“I saw there was a need for people who weren’t able to share their voice or were feeling a little bit shy to do so,” said Labatt. “It was really important for us to stand strong and do this, and just spread a little bit of love and kindness, it’s the name of the event, it’s something we want to make sure we push today.”
REGINA Regina residents and local businesses are reacting with a show of support for LGBTQ2S+ people after a pastor’s message was called homophobic by some community members. On Sunday, Pastor Terry Murphy gave a sermon at Regina Victory Church that has since been condemned by many in the community. The sermon was livestreamed on Facebook. Murphy’s sermon compared members of the LGBTQ2S+ community to pedophiles and expressed the belief that sex should only occur “between a man and a woman.” Terry Van Mackelberg said he will be submitting a complaint to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.
SASKATOON Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan are studying trends and patterns in racist tweets directed at Asian people. The researchers say since the pandemic began, hate towards Asian communities has risen dramatically. “Because of the origin of COVID, many people blame China. And because many people cannot differentiate between Chinese, Japanese or other Asian people the whole Asian community is affected,” said Hongming Cheng, a sociology professor involved in the project. Cheng, along with computer and linguistic experts, will track about 80 million tweets sent during the pandemic. The team will then identify offensive content and train an algorithm to pinpoint racist posts in the data.