This is where the tides turned.

Here, in this dim, peaceful room where the arched windows are still covered in thick plastic even though it’s mid-June; here, where the dark red carpet lies worn and the pews bear the chips and scratches and dullness of many years; where the words above the altar read: “Welcome home.”

On Jan. 14, 2001, the church’s senior pastor Rev. Brent Hawkes married Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell, and Anne and Elaine Vautour, at the front of this room, packed with cheering, crying friends and supporters while outside, protesters yelled and shook signs.

Theirs were the first legal same-sex marriages in Canada.

Each person in the crowd of perhaps a thousand had been searched by police before they were allowed through the doors of Riverdale’s Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto. Dozens of officers were stationed in the basement; Hawkes, who had been rushed and shoved while delivering his sermon that morning, was in a bulletproof vest. The police insisted on it; there had been death threats, serious ones.

That’s how it was then.

In the 13 years since, Hawkes has received a slew of awards and honorary doctorates for his fight for LGBTQ rights. In 2007, he was named to the Order of Canada. He officiated over the state funeral of NDP leader Jack Layton.

But the honour bestowed on him is something different, perhaps even more special. Hawkes, 64, will serve as the grand marshal of the WorldPride Parade on June 29, leading what’s expected to be one of the largest processions in Toronto’s history.

Seated on a chair covered in red material in the church, talking, telling stories in a rapid-fire style, Hawkes’ twinkly eyes get, perhaps, a little misty when he mentions it.

“I was surprised by how emotional I felt (when I found out),” he says. All those awards over the years were great, but: “This was my community. This was my own community honouring the work we’ve done.”

There’s a prayer Hawkes came across not long ago, one that really resonated with him. It goes: “Thank you God for helping me to hang in long enough that I can look back and understand why.”

In some ways, Hawkes started as the ultimate outsider.

Born and raised in a strict Baptist family in Bath, New Brunswick, he came to Toronto in 1977. He soon became a pastor at what was then a floundering, four-year-old, gay-friendly church that met in offices, backyards, church basements and rooms over bars.

It was tense, in those days. There was the rising violence between police and activists; there was the impending devastation of AIDS. Hawkes came out to his family, figuring they’d see him on the news, as he took what’s become his usual place on the front lines.

It was tough, in those days. People were fired from jobs, threatened, assaulted, murdered, evicted, shunned, for their sexuality.

It was tougher still to belong to opposing sides of the struggle underway, at times ostracized by both.

“It was pretty challenging,” says Hawkes. “If you were gay in the Christian community, you’re not welcome, and if you’re Christian in the gay community, at some points, you weren’t welcomed either.”

He had to push the MCC’s board to participate in Pride back then. It was felt it was too left-wing, too radical.

There will always be radicals, on all sides, he told them, explaining that they needed to make sure there was a middle ground. MCC touted (fielded) the first float in Toronto Pride history, a little wagon done up like Noah’s Ark.

It broke partway through, so they carried it.

Over the years, Hawkes has been beaten by police, he’s chained himself to the legislature, he’s gone without eating for 25 days in protest of the 1981 bath house raids.

“It takes people to persist, to take risks, and to make sacrifices in order to move things forward for the people who come after us,” says Hawkes, who took cues from the U.S. civil rights movement that he’d become acquainted with during his time at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. “That’s the way it happens — you have to fight against the resistance; you can’t back off, you can’t give in.”

When the MCC bought a building on Gerrard St. E. in 1985, it was the first gay and lesbian organization in Canada to have its own property. The church moved to its current location on Simpson Ave. in 1991.

City Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam went to the MCC as a 16-year-old LGBTQ youth. Despite being Buddhist, that’s where she found safety.

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There has often been conflict with religion and spirituality for LGBTQ people, she says. Hawkes bridged that divide.

“Even though I’m not Christian, I found sanctuary in a Christian church,” says Wong-Tam. “(Hawkes) was a visionary and he was able to do that, send a message really loudly and clearly, demonstrate to his community, which is the LGBTQ community, that they can come here and belong and feel safe, regardless of whatever God you choose to worship, there’s a space for you there. That’s the beauty of Brent Hawkes.”

Wong-Tam was shocked to learn Hawkes had never been grand marshal of a Pride Parade. (He says he’s been nominated previously, but disagreed with the selection process — since revamped — and so didn’t want the post).

“I thought, you know what, it cannot be, it cannot be that the federal government acknowledged our hero and the community has not done so,” says Wong-Tam. “For the LGBTQ community, being named the grand marshal is probably the highest honour that we can bestow.”

So she nominated him.

When the MCC decided to make same-sex marriage a cause, it found a little-known clause that allowed for marriage by the publishing of banns — a formal announcement of intent to marry. So, while the city continued to apologetically deny the more standard marriage licences to same-sex couples and cases wound through the courts, Hawkes took to the altar in December 2000 and announced the coming marriages of two couples who were part of the congregation.

Joe Varnell says the six weeks between the reading of the banns and the marriage were “a very surreal and intense period.”

“Nobody knew when we were all starting just how intense it was going to be,” says Varnell. “We had all anticipated a lot of the legal journey, but not necessarily the intense attention and reactions that we were going to get.”

Hawkes, says Varnell, took care of them, ensured the focus remained on their relationships, their marriages. Hawkes put himself in the line of fire to spare them.

“Brent has been at the forefront of a lot of the struggles and I think it’s basically baked into Brent’s DNA,” says Varnell. “In some cases, Brent has acted like that lightening rod, when he knows the negative reactions are coming, he’ll put himself in a space where he can handle and field a lot of those issues.”

Ten years later, Hawkes officiated at Jack Layton’s funeral, his words comforting a grieving country from coast to coast. Afterward, he was described as one of Canada’s best known, and most respected, clergymen.

“I thought, ‘How in hell did that happen?’ ” says Hawkes, laughing. But while many churches are failing, MCC has a regular congregation of well over a thousand. It’s outgrown its space on Simpson Ave. Hawkes is regularly called on to give advice to other church leaders; 30-some years after getting a beating at the hands of Toronto police, he performed the marriage for current Chief Bill Blair’s son.

And now, this.

In his signature black-with-white collar, a rainbow-coloured cross hanging on his chest, Hawkes will stride out from the corner of Church and Bloor Sts., a religious leader leading the celebration of diversity that Pride has become.

He will not wear the bulletproof vest that now hangs in his closet under a skiff of dust.

“Look at how far we’ve come,” he says.