Gay pastor in atlanta
Bishop Eddie Long
Bishop Eddie Extended pastors a huge church near Atlanta. He&#;s also one of the most homophobic black ministers in America.
LITHONIA, Ga. — &#;Men can look attractive when they are dirty,&#; writes Bishop Eddie Long in his book I Don&#;t Want Delilah, I Deserve You! &#;We see sweating, dirty, hardworking men on television all the period and we say to one another, &#;There&#;s a macho guy.&#;&#;
Despite this affinity for sweaty, macho men, Long is one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement. His book, subtitled What a Woman Needs to Know, What a Male Needs to Understand, appeared in the midst of a roaring growth period for Long&#;s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., near Atlanta. During the mid-&#;90s, it swelled to over 18, congregation members, men and women who worship in a multimillion-dollar complex that&#;s the size of most major universities, spread out on acres of land.
Much of what appears in I Don&#;t Want Delilah was espoused in the videotaped &#;Back to the Future” sermon Long gave
Georgia Megachurch Pastor Reveals He's Gay
Nov. 2, &#; -- The pastor of a Georgia megachurch with thousands of followers, who was twice married and is a father of four, is speaking out about his recent decision to publicly declare he is gay.
"I comprehend a lot of straight people consider orientation is a choice. I wish to tell you that it is not," Jim Swilley said in a video shot in the nondenominational megachuch Swilley founded 25 years ago.
Though Swilley said coming out was a judgment he's struggled with since childhood, he made the announcement last month not for personal reasons -- he said he hopes to save lives.
The year-old founder of Church in the Now in Conyers, Ga., said he's coming out to support stem the recent tide of homosexual suicides in America and won't be swayed by some hateful messages that have been written about him online.
"To think about saving a teenager, yeah, I'll risk my reputation for that," he told ABC News' Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV before before tearing up. "As a father, thinking about your , year-old killi
OUR VISIONARY LEADERSHIP
Bishop Oliver Clyde Allen, III, is a religious trailblazer, author, human rights advocate, an international and community chief and entrepreneur. Bishop O.C. Allen is the Senior Pastor and Founder of The Vision Cathedral of Atlanta known as &#;The Vision Church&#;. The Vision Church has 3 campuses, The Vision Church of Atlanta, Vision Church of Raleigh, Vision Church of Los Angeles and Vision Church of Nashville. He is the founder and Presiding Bishop of the United Progressive Pentecostal Fellowship of Churches (UPPC), a evolving Christian and inclusive religious group which oversees senior pastors, ministers, churches and faith-based organizations throughout the United States and abroad. He also is a Commissioner on the Atlanta Human Rights Commission.
In , Bishop Allen was appointed by President Barak Obama to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). In , he was appointed the Southeastern Chair of the DNC-LGBT Advisory Board and a co-chair of the DNC LGBTQ Policy Collective. He has served as the National
Atlanta queer-friendly Black church is source of solace for LGBTQ youths: 'I stare over and see my people'
“I was at my lowest point, like, I was absolutely suicidal when I walked into” Vision, she said. “The internalized negativity had just taken over. I didn’t long to be alive anymore. I didn’t know a way out, because I hated myself, because that’s what I was taught, to hate a person who was gay.”
The South Georgia native described her upbringing in a “very Christian” Black evangelical residence, where family members love her mother, her uncle and a grandfather often stepped up to the pulpit as pastors.
“My mother was in labor with me on a pew at church. She had to leave church to go have me,” she said, adding that from the ages of 18 to 24, she ventured outside her family’s church to attend six to eight other churches.
At each church, McKinney became skilled at code-switching. She swapped her slacks for skirts and left no questions open when it came to her sexuality. But at Vision, McKinney said, she no longer feels compelled to pretzel herself into a category to gain