Bishop Oliver Clyde Allen, right, is probably one of the most recognized openly gay black ministers in the United States. Here he is with his husband Rashad Burgess and adopted daughter LaTanya. The couple even made Ebony Magazine’s list of the 10 Coolest Families in America. Photo courtesy of The Examiner.
“Brunson” is a deacon, sometimes preacher and choir singer at his church.
He is masculine enough with a burly build and a well coiffed beard but if you look closely enough there is no mistaking he is gay.
Brunson’s outfits are too well put together — what straight man other than TV commentator Roland Martin wears an ascot?. The scent of cologne follows wherever he walks. And at 35 he has never had kids or even brought a girlfriend to church.
“So why not come out to members of your congregation,” I ask.
“No way. My private life is my business.”
“But if more black clergy members came out wouldn’t that help ease homophobia in the black community and especially black churches?”
“My church is too conservative,” answered Branson, not even bothering to entertain the thought.
I’ve fucked many people in the church. At least three ministers and a chart-topping gospel artist.
And it has never ceased to amaze me how, despite the fact they advocate God’s love from the pulpit or choir, they can be the folks most against love for LGBT people.
The cognitive dissonance is jarring.
I know one minister who says preaching hard on Sunday makes him especially horny. So on Monday you can often find him at a bathhouse getting his hole dug out by any hard dick he can find.
But would he ever come out to his flock. “It’s none of their business,” he says, sounding alot like Brunson.
I think one of the biggest reasons for these ecclesiastical closet cases is money. Several ministers I know in Baltimore, including one who is married to a woman and plays with men, are pulling in big money.
One drives a late model Mercedes and oversees multi-million-dollar church community projects.
The second uses love offerings from his congregation to go on shopping sprees in Washington D.C.’s tony Georgetown enclave. His closet is filled with designer clothes, many with the tags still on.
Yet when you ask him why he doesn’t challenge homophobia in his conservative congregation he says with a straight face that he has a theological degree and has studied the Bible for years and can find nothing in the Bible that justifies homosexuality.
Yet just a month or so ago he was bugging my partner “Van” and I to come over and threesome with him on a Saturday afternoon before he had to write his Sunday sermon.
I go to a Presbyterian Church that is accepting of LGBT people. Van is frequent guest and folks have been nothing but welcoming.
But my congregation is mostly white.
Sometimes I wonder whether homophobia in the black community would ease if all these gay black men in church took a stand and stopped hiding behind the cross.
Because Jesus sacrificed his life for them. Is it too much for them to sacrifice some of their comfort for their gay brothers?
