Outing campaign roils D.C. black Baptist church

[davidinalameda]

http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=16289

One of Washington’s largest black Baptist churches was rocked by a female member of its choir who sent separate e-mail messages to the pastor in December and January outing more than 100 church members as gay, mostly male choir members.

The outings added to the inner turmoil experienced by a large number of gays who attend services at the 7,000-member Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church, located on Rhode Island Ave., N.E., according to a gay former member who provided copies of the e-mails to the Blade.

“I will be leaving the choir at the top of the year because 80 percent of the tenors are homosexuals and act more like a female in choir rehearsal than I do,” the church choir member said in one of her e-mails to Bishop Alfred Owens Jr., the church pastor.

The e-mail, sent in December, identifies about 45 fellow church members as gay. She sent a second e-mail to Owens on Jan. 2 identifying another 62 church members as gay.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. And to her I say, "Good riddance, you nasty bitch!" n/t

[msongs]

2. more proud christians in the donnie mcclurkin vein nt

[MNDemNY]

3. Obama should hassle on down and pander for their votes!

[primavera]

14. Don't tempt him n/t

[NMMNG]

4. 1. She's a bigoted twit who shouldn't let the door hit her on the ass on the way out

2. What self-respecting gay man or woman would want to be affiliated with that church in the first place? It runs one of those depraved "Ex-Gay" psycho-spiritual terrorist "ministries". :puke:

[dsc]

5. I am still trying to wrap my mind around 100's of choir members

but what a bigotted wretch.

[Ian David]

6. I have mixed feelings about this.

I am 100% in favor of outing gay public figures who enact or enable anti-gay policies that hurt others.

But I'm not sure how I feel about outing gay people just because they belong to an anti-gay church.

Unless they're in the choir and sing anti-gay songs or something.

[mitchtv]

7. What a no good Xian

Boy, those guys should watch out where the associate

[Divine Discontent]

8. what a bunch of incredible

LOSERS. Those two people who sent those emails, the first, being the instigator, then the 2nd claiming he wasn't going down (in flames, that is) alone, really shows how messed up a lot of churches are about gay people. The smear campaign that they initiated is disgusting. Shame on them, that is far from Christian.

[shenmue]

9. Oh my goodness.

People need to love people. End of story.

[UALRBSofL]

11. I think Obama needs to make a quick trip to the church

And put the fire out ASAP. We will see.

[DeSwiss]

10. Can't you just feel the Lub of Jebus???

- What an asshat!!!

K&R!!!

[quiet.american]

12. Aside from all else, this woman apparently has a LOT of time on her hands.

She is obviously a disturbed soul.

[Babel_17]

13. Wow

I find it strange that so many gays would belong to such a church. What am I missing? Are their services so impressive that it makes up for the homophobia? Or does belonging to such a church help those gays who are desperate to maintain a cover?

Makes me sad if that's the case, if they have to live such a lie because they fear the hatred and disapproval of family and friends.

P.S. I'm no mathematician but "90.9 percent of the tenors in Sanctuary choir are homosexual." indicates that there is a minimum of 909 gay tenors in that choir, lol.

[MountainLaurel]

15. All of the above

If what I've read is valid, both about the prevalence of gays in African-American church choirs, and about AA gays who are deeply in the closet. A roommate of mine had a good friend in both categories: He was a singer who had been with his partner for several years, but he would never come out to his family because he knew that was an unforgivable and his mother would never speak to him again.