By now, everyone has heard of the video of the Connecticut church that featured the so-called exorcism of a "homosexual spirit" from a 16-year-old child.
I posted youtube video of the incident a while back. It has since been removed but you know you can't keep something that good from being played in other mediums.
The church, Manifest Gloried Ministries, is an African-American church and that to me is one of the saddest things of all. It demonstrates just how removed the modern lgbt rights movement is from the lgbt of color community.
More infuriating than that are the comments made by the church's head Pastor Patricia McKinney, who was featured in the video supposedly exorcising the child:
"Manifested Glory Ministries is not against homosexuality. We do not hate them. We do not come up against them. We do just not believe in their lifestyle."
That's just the biggest degree of doublespeak since the term was invented. If the church has nothing against the lgbt community then why does it feel the need to think of homosexuality as a demonic spirit that needs to be exorcised?
But far be it from logic to be on the forefront of McKinney's mind. After all, she is "anointed" and "anointed people" don't need logic or common sense.
The church is now facing a lot of criticism. But they also have their defenders.
The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is blaming the lgbt community for the entire incident. The group claimed that the church was merely exercising its religious beliefs and is now being persecuted:
CADC wants to know where is the tolerance for a church who tried to help a young man who freely asked for help to overcome homosexual temptations? No church deserves to be maligned for trying to help a troubled teen who asked for prayer.
Why are homosexuals so outraged?
Yeah why are we so outraged? How dare we complain of being thought of as Satanic spirits out to do mischief and cause harm. We just don't know our place. It needs to be nipped in the bud. The next thing you know, we will be defending ourselves when someone physically bashes us.
The Commission also says:
Because the video is being so widely viewed on the internet, homosexual activists have viciously attacked the church. These are the same people who demand tolerance for their sexual sin. But they have no tolerance for Christians who are practicing their Constitutional religious liberty. As far as we know, this young man went to church on his own prerogative and left the church unharmed.
By contrast, we know that homosexuals are allowed to participate in vile Gay Pride Parades and perverted fetish festivals on public property throughout the country. These events often involve criminally lewd and lascivious conduct that take place in the presence of children, yet they go unpunished.
I'm not even going to answer that silliness except for to say that not all gay pride parades are the same. Down here in South Carolina, our events are extremely family-friendly. But that is neither here nor there.
Really though, the justification by the Christian Anti-Defamation Comission of the church is just ridiculous. Any points it is trying to make is obscurred by the fact that THIS GROUP IS ACTUALLY DEFENDING A CHURCH FOR ATTEMPTING TO EXORCISE A 'HOMOSEXUAL DEMON' FROM A CHILD.
The only thing credible about the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is its name. This is the same group that defended Paul Cameron and Scott Lively, two men who due to their intentional tendencies to tell lies on the lgbt community had their groups declared as official hate organizations by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The real sad story is the 16-year-old child who seems to think that his natural impulses and desires are the result of being possessed. He is a prime of example of what could happen to our lgbt children (particularly our lgbt children of color) when the right resources aren't made available to them.
If you ask me, I think demonic spirits may have something to do with that.
UPDATE - According to Rod 2.0 Beta, the child in the center of the controversy now attends an lgbt-affirming church. That is good news indeed!
