Canadian Forces and Pride - Online

For the current issue of Capital Xtra, I wrote a feature-length piece on the state of gays and lesbians in today's Canadian Forces. I was prompted by the fact that last month, Hamilton Pride barred the Canadian Forces (CF) from their Pride parade over what they said were alleged human rights abuses in countries where the CF are stationed, like Haiti and Afghanistan. A couple of weeks later, CF troops marched in uniform in the Toronto Pride parade for the first time ever.

Initially, the piece had been a large feature plus a sidebar which looked at where Capital Pride--Ottawa's Pride festival--stood on the issue of CF participation. Once everything was turned over to the editor, things changed. The feature piece wound up in the print edition as a shortened piece, while parts were added to the sidebar and are in the online edition under the title "Canadian Forces invited to Capital Pride, but not Hamilton." The other piece will be a feature piece on xtra.ca later in the week, and I will link to it once it is online.