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Nova Scotia newspaper prank announcing gay wedding angers targets, LGBT community

When Bobby Cooper opened the paper this week, he expected to read the news.

Instead, the Nova Scotia man discovered he had become the news after he and friend Russell Rogers were targeted in an elaborate prank.

As CTV News reports, a friend of the pair placed an engagement announcement in the Chronicle Herald that featured a photo of the two men above a heading that read, "Cooper — Rogers Engagement".

The blurb, which appeared alongside other nuptial announcements, described their "committed relationship of five years" and included their schools and their parents' names.

"Bobby and Russell met at a Montreal Canadiens game and have been the source of many happy moments in all of their friend's lives," it read. "The very proud parents could not be happier about the upcoming union."

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The only hiccup is that Cooper and Rogers aren't in a relationship.

In fact, the men aren't even gay, and the entire incident has angered more than just the intended targets.

Speaking to CTV Atlantic, Kevin Kindred of the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project said the move "trivializes" all the work being done for same-sex couples.

"This clearly is not good for the guys involved. It's not good for the gay community. It's not good for anyone and it's just really juvenile and unfortunate," he said.

Cooper agreed, stating that the prank shot beyond poor taste and waded into harmful territory.

"I am a strong proponent of equal marriage rights for the LGBT community, and hate having my name involved in a prank that could possibly be perceived as making a mockery of something that the community had to fight towards for so long in Canada," he said in a statement.

Cooper also singled out the Chronicle Herald for failing to do their research before sending the paper off to the press.

While the nature of this particular prank may be more controversial, it certainly isn't the first time newspapers have behaved as a medium for mockery.

Last year businessman Basim Mansour spent $3000 on an April Fool's Day ad in The Virginian-Pilot announcing he'd purchased the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel for $659 million.

The trouble with today's media-based pranks, however, is that they live on the Internet forever.

OpenFile notes that before CTV got wind of the story, a screen grab had already gone viral on Facebook and Twitter.

So even if the jokes are meant in the spirit of a solid chuckle, pranksters should think twice before attaching their friends' names to something that will pop up in every future search engine query.

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