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The gay blogosphere is alight with the news that a female choir member at the Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church on Rhode Island Ave. outed over 100 church members in two separate emails to Bishop Alfred Owens, Jr.
The first email, sent last month, named 45 members as gay; the second email, sent earlier this month, names over 60 additional people. An anonymous gay former church member supplied the Washington Blade with copies of the email messages, edited not only to remove the names of those who were outed, but also the person who sent them.
In one of the messages, the female choir member wrote, "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." Further on, she wrote, "The following people I am asking you to monitor very closely and my prayer is that you will sit them down from their ministries, because they are ushering in the presence of sin, lies, a spirit of homosexuality and sexual spirits."
She mentions specific gay bars such as Halo and the Fireplace, parties they go to, and even comes up with some curiously acute percentages of members who are gay. ("... 90.9 percent of the tenors in Sanctuary choir are homosexual. 99.9 percent of all the tenors in Celebration Choir are homosexual.") Copies of the messages also went out to over 300 church members via the church's Yahoo group.
Nearly 2 years ago, Bishop Owens garnered media attention for his use of the word "faggot" in a sermon recorded by the church. The CityPaper has an audio excerpt of the sermon, some of which the Blade quoted in its article:
It takes real men to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. I'm not talking about no faggot or no sissy...Wait a minute! Let all the real men come on down here and take a bow. All the real men -- I'm talking about the straight men. You ain't funny and you ain't cranky, but you're straight.
According to the Blade's source, Bishop Owens responded to the emails by calling a meeting for all of the church's choirs. At the meeting, Owens reportedly said he wanted to help gay church members to stop being gay, and that he would meet with everyone named in the email messages to determine who "needs to be monitored or sat down from what they do." The church hosts a "Breaking the Chains of Homosexuality" group sessions twice a month led by Minister Dennis Sawyers.
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love the headline. hopefully angela lansbury doesn't have anything against homosexuals, because i think she is the cats pajamas.
I'm guessing, given these percentages that the choirs in each case must be HUUUGE... either that or she's got some sort of weighting system based on a flamboyance spectrum or something.
ah, you gotta love the religious zealots...they seem so happy...if ever you need proof that ignorance is bliss, look their way
i'm not gay, but i've got some friends who are and for them, i may just go down to this church and toe-kick the good bishop in his junk and the do whatever the female equivalent is to the choir bitch
ah, you gotta love the religious zealots...they seem so happy...if ever you need proof that ignorance is bliss, look their way
i'm not gay, but i've got some friends who are and for them, i may just go down to this church and toe-kick the good bishop in his junk and the do whatever the female equivalent is to the female choir member
Maybe they can get Phelps to come in and do a lecture.
phelps-roper. well. i'd pay to see that stand-up in a place of worship.
In one of the messages, the female choir member wrote, "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."
So, now that it's published that they're gay she's leaving, even though she knew the entire time she was in the choir?
Silly breeders. This is why gays dont take you seriously
Isn't this loser pastor on a bunch of different 'advisory committees' to the DC government?
Mayor Fenty needs to publicly distance himself from this asswipe.
I wish the city wouldn't bend over backwards for these churches. All they add to the city is parking problems, and apparently homophobia.
What kind of self-hating homosexuals stuck around for two years after this douche insulted them and demonstrated his medieval understanding of sexuality? I mean, come one, I'd think something like that would cause the Gay Tenor Index to drop below 65 at least.
Wait wait... I get it, it's all the gay members of congress who have to make some sort of attempt at ungaying themselves! Hey guys, if you want us to believe you, quit singing so goddamn much!
I'm going to join up. That spinning cross on the website is da' bomb.
Amen lemonlaug!
Oh, there's some bending over going on. Not sure if it's backwards, though....
Seriously, the city kissing the asses of these gay-hating churches is obscene. It needs to stop. You can't pretend to be wanting to 'heal the city' or suck up government funds (as they all do on one level or another), then go doing all you can to make life hard for a whole bunch of actual taxpaying DC residents (as opposed to the majority of these church folks).
Well, this is what happens when you're zombie death cult tells you that loving someone of the same sex is "crazy" but falling in love with rectangular pieces of green paper God's way of showing favor. Such a verkakte country mit these meshuge goyim I've never seen. You should be praying, PRAYING that Ben Franklin's stinking corpse doesn't come back to smite all of you.
I don't understand the political dynamic that continues to empower these churches.
I don't understand the political dynamic that continues to empower these churches
Or any churches. I am constantly astounded by the black community's embrace of christianity, since it was forced upon them by the slavers to pacify them.
One could say it embodies perfectly the Stockholm syndrome.
I'm quite astounded by two things: 1) the high levels of homophobia in the black community; and 2) the high levels of influence that certain black church leaders have with the Wilson Building, even though most of their congregations now are MD and VA residents.
I wish this church would close. I live near this church and 90% of the congregants drive in from PG or NOVA. The rest are bused in on vans and buses owned by the church. They take up parking, illegally park on RI Ave, block bus lanes, and take up valuable parking at the RI Ave Metro Station and RI Place Shopping Center. They contribute nothing to the city but hate, traffic, and crime. Mt. Calvary is like a fortress to the community it is located in. It has bars on its front and everything. I can't wait until those PGers start attending their own churches in PG.
Just to continue my rant... That space could be better used for economic development in Eckington and Brentwood. RI Ave could be a heck of a lot safer if there businesses and condos fronting that stretch between the metro and 4th St NE. I wouldn't mind walking the four blocks it takes to get home if there were businesses and people walking around.
funny that she thinks only the tenors are gay. If you sing bass, you must like the ladies.
hilarious.
I'd question her percentages; 90.9 and 99.9 percent of tenors being gay seem unusually specific. Because if she just surveyed these guys by asking them whether or not they peed sitting down, I'd say her sampling methodologies were highly suspect.
And what about those 1.1 and .01 percent straight guys? What are they doing there? Are they just in it for the comeraderie or the fabulously decadent bake sale items? Whoo! Whoo! Next stop: my thighs!
There would be no men in the church choir if not for gays.
And dc4life, rant on. I live in the same area and would LOVE to see more done with RI Ave. I walk the extra distance to Brookland because that stretch between 13th and the metro station is just scary sometimes. Maybe the church should be less focused on bashing its gays and more concerned with making the surrounding community a better place to live?
Maybe the church should be less focused on bashing its gays and more concerned with making the surrounding community a better place to live?
Unfortunately the hard and thankless work of revitalizing a community doesn't get you as much ink as railing against those horrible, evil, duplicitous, well-dressed, sodomites.
Who cares? While I don't subscribe to any of the views expressed by the Pastor or this misguided woman, who cares if a church that none of us attends is homophobic. Even though her actions are reprehensible, DCist brought this into the public sphere, not the woman who outed all these people. It's not like a public official was at the church that day or offered to visit the church, thus giving the perception of public support of this ignorance. I assume that if there are gay members of the congregation, that they would have left before or certainly would leave now.
I won't ever attend this church, but it's not like a business that can be effectively boycotted, particularly by outsiders liek most of us. I guess we can denounce them publicly, but to what end? Are we going to blog about every instance of homophobia that occurs? Just a thought.
"I am constantly astounded by the black community's embrace of christianity, since it was forced upon them by the slavers to pacify them."
Whomever wrote this is forgetting that slaves were not taught true Christianity. However, hymnals about salvation and redemption grew out of slavery and were used to communicate messages about escaping to freedom. You're also forgetting that the main reason teaching slaves to read was illegal was because slave owners didn't want their "property" to know what the bible really said. Given these facts, I don't think slaves were ever taught "real" Christianity, and when they were exposed to it, they used it to empower each other. I'm not particularly religious, but you should review your history before posing such a critique.
Don't forget the lesbians. They taking over! Rubbin' eachother's tittyballs, blowing on their nipples 'till they're all... just... so... stiff! Can't have it! Not on my watch!
No?? Gays in the choir?? What's next? Lesbians in Subarus?
I agree, the spinning cross on their website is the bomb! However, I got more excited on their "Sow a Seed" link on their web page. I clicked on it in hopes of sowing my own gay seed. Is that tax deductible?
And there would be no organists in the church if it weren't for gay men.
Plus, I just love saying organist and snickering like a 12 year old.
"You're also forgetting that the main reason teaching slaves to read was illegal was because slave owners didn't want their "property" to know what the bible really said. "
Well, since an awful lot of educated white people have used the Bible who did read the Bible came away thinking the Bible condones slavery, which it does.
Just like it condones polygamy, the incestuous marrying of sisters to the same guy, forced marriage of underage girls..... Oh, the list of Biblical joys goes on and on.
But my favorite is probably the requirement that you wait a 'proper period' before it was ok to rape the wives of soldiers you killed in battle.
So I'm not sure how keeping blacks from reading the Bible would really be a negative from the point of view of those that would seek to enslave them.
What is it with church choirs? I sing in a church choir (NOT the evil Mt. Calvary). Almost all of the Bass and Tenor sections are gay. Its FABULOUS!!!