Revelers can do almost anything at Canada’s Wonderland: surge in a train car at highway speed down a near-vertical incline, swoop on a gargantuan swing, scarf down pounds of bulk candy and free-fall 70 metres while strapped in a chair.

But if you’re gay and you hug your partner?

Not so fast, apparently.

Barrett Morrison and Brandon Hamilton went to the Vaughan amusement park on June 18 to mark the annual “Gay Day” at Wonderland, organized this year by advocacy group PFLAG and Pride Toronto. Waiting in line for the Lazy River, Morrison said he and his partner hugged —as any couple might on such an occasion.

Apparently somebody didn’t like that.

Morrison said they were approached by a Wonderland worker who told them there was a complaint. The worker asked them to stop hugging and said “we should check our behaviour because it’s a family park,” Morrison said.

The park’s general manager has since apologized to the couple and has “reiterated the importance” of the incident to employees several times, according to spokesperson Soulla Lindo. She said the staffer in question has not been disciplined because they haven’t been able to figure out who it was.

“All we were doing was hugging,” Morrison, 37, recalled in an interview. “It’s not like we had our hands down each other’s pants. It was just natural touching like any other couple in the park.

“The magic that’s supposed to happen at Canada’s Wonderland was lost to us,” he added. “It didn’t exactly ruin the day, but it put a dark taint on it.”

Morrison said they “told off” the employee at the time, and the worker promptly backed down and apologized. But the bad taste from the interaction lingered, so they wrote to Wonderland general manager Norm Pirtovshek to express their disappointment.

That prompted a written apology and an assurance that “discrimination is not tolerated” at the park, according to an email that Morrison provided to the Star.

Pirtovshek was not available for an interview Tuesday, but park spokesperson Lindo called the no-hugging request “an isolated incident,” and said Wonderland has hosted the PFLAG group for the past 10 years without any issues.

“But we do understand the sensitivity, and are taking this matter very seriously as we do not tolerate discrimination here at the park,” Lindo said.

She added that all of the park’s 4,000 employees receive human rights training.

Anne Creighton, president of PFLAG in Toronto, called the incident “discouraging and devastating,” and contended that it shows the park’s staff training hasn’t worked well enough.

“Staff need to go under some sort of sensitivity training so that they understand that this is Canada and people are allowed to openly show affection,” she said.

“That customers didn’t like seeing two men hug is their problem. It doesn’t require park enforcement.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Morrison, meanwhile, said that even though his anger from the confrontation has waned, he still believes he should speak out.

“It’s not a huge ordeal. It’s not like we were assaulted or kicked out,” Morrison said.

“It’s just the point, the point that that s--- shouldn’t happen from an employee of a major corporation.”