LGBT Group Ey Purchase Of Anti-Gay Church Buildg In Harlem - CBS New York

Contents:

• A RARE HAVEN FOR GAY MEN AND LBIANS HARLEM
• LGBT GROUP EY PURCHASE OF ANTI-GAY CHURCH BUILDG IN HARLEM
• THE GAY HARLEM RENAISSANCE
• BLACK GAY PRIT NYC CHALLENG CATHOLICISM OM WH
• STUNTS AT HARLEM'S ANTI-GAY ATLAH CHURCH ENDURED ABE: REPORT
• ALL 4 NY EPISPAL BISHOP NDIDAT WILL ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE IF ELECTED
• BLACK GAY PRIT NYC CHALLENG CATHOLICISM OM WH
• BLACK GAY PRIT NYC CHALLENG CATHOLICISM OM WH
• LGBT GROUP EY PURCHASE OF ANTI-GAY CHURCH BUILDG IN HARLEM
• AVOIDG FORECLOSURE FOR NOW, HARLEM CHURCH CELEBRAT WH ANTI-GAY VRL

A RARE HAVEN FOR GAY MEN AND LBIANS HARLEM

7th Ave: A Cradle to the Morn Gay Rights Movement. But when each of them me out as gay, both realized they didn’t feel at home anymore the spirual hom that shaped their liv.

LGBT GROUP EY PURCHASE OF ANTI-GAY CHURCH BUILDG IN HARLEM

This stggle is one many gay Christians face–and n be pecially plited for members of the Ain Amerin muny. “The black church is an important fol pot of black life that had a larger than life role people’s everyday existence, ” said Michael Henry Adams, a historian who’s wrg a book lled “Homo Harlem: Lbian and Gay Life the Ain-Amerin Cultural Capal, 1915-1995.

“The Church, officially, very much looked down on the very ia of homosexualy, ” Adams said. Philip’s Church, an Epispal church wh a long history of servg as a refuge for LGBTQ people, attracted a number of gay ngregants, and later, the Memorial Baptist Church performed same-sex weddgs and funerals for gay people. He said, “One of the target groups we intified were people who had left the church bee they had been damaged by the church, and that group are people who are gay or queer.

“Somewhere along the le, I picked up that beg gay and Christian was appropriate, that there was somethg wrong about beg attracted to women, that I would go to hell, ” she said.

THE GAY HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Two young gay Ain-Amerin, Ao-Caribbean men n walk to a black church and feel wele. It has more than 10, 000 members, and many are gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr. And he would be nsired, you know, anti-gay.

He said, when I started g here, I was agast people who were gay. I was agast, he said, homosexualy.

She was gay. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTA Rare Haven for Gay Men and Lbians Muhammad/The New York TimMay 27, 2012In a church ntled among a row of rintial brownston, parishners clapped and danced as a woman began to ttify.

BLACK GAY PRIT NYC CHALLENG CATHOLICISM OM WH

”For black Christians who are gay and lbian, church n be a dntg experience, where on any given Sunday they are tght that homosexualy is not only a s, but a one-way ticket to hell. That alienatn has been a benef for the Rivers at Rehoboth ngregatn, Harlem, which has ma mistry to gay men and lbians, bed wh the worship tradns of black church, s ngregatn was formed by the merger of two church, Rivers of Livg Fah and Rehoboth Temple.

Brown, 41, is a lbian, and the pastor of Rehoboth, Joseph Tolton, 45, is gay, and both were born and raised Harlem.

STUNTS AT HARLEM'S ANTI-GAY ATLAH CHURCH ENDURED ABE: REPORT

Tolton, the associate pastor, offers as a mantra the phrase “Gay by God.

”Only “small segments” of black church lears openly wele gay men and lbians their ngregatns, acrdg to Lawrence H.

ALL 4 NY EPISPAL BISHOP NDIDAT WILL ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE IF ELECTED

Tolton said he left his church after a iend told him he uld not be the bt man at his weddg bee he is gay.

Tolton Brown said she, too, stggled wh the church’s stance on homosexualy. She said she married a man who was gay, to help him ver up his sexualy and protect his image the church.

BLACK GAY PRIT NYC CHALLENG CATHOLICISM OM WH

Tolton’s church on a promotnal postrd at a support clic for gay black men East Harlem. “It’s the saft place to go whout beg nmned at the end of service, ” she, she said, her entire fay attends the church, cludg her six adult children, and her 74-year-old mother, who changed her views on homosexualy when she joed the pastors say they are now lookg for a larger space which to expand. ” A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 15 of the New York edn wh the headle: A Rare Haven for Gay Men and Lbians Harlem.

BLACK GAY PRIT NYC CHALLENG CATHOLICISM OM WH

But as our Lda Villarosa wrote for The Root, “The Harlem of the 1920s… was disputably gay.

Though most of the attentn was foced on whe gay men downtown, HIV would eventually eradite thoands Harlem. “Before AIDS looked like gay people were gog to be fluential and radilizg the world, ” said thor and historian Michael Henry Adams.

LGBT GROUP EY PURCHASE OF ANTI-GAY CHURCH BUILDG IN HARLEM

Now, the wrer and activist envisns a send book, “Homo Harlem; Lbian and Gay Life the Ain-Amerin Cultural Capal, 1915–1995. Others, like the Atlah Missnary Baptist church on Wt 123rd Street — famo for s marquee displayg msag like “J Would Stone Homos” — choose hate over, Senr Pastor of Rivers of Livg Water NYC/NJ (ROLW) Vansa Brown says church n be different and clive.

“It’s important that we as LGBTQ people learn to homogenize our spirualy wh our sexualy, said Brown, whose partner works as ROLW’s Mister of Mic. Brown said ROLW, part of a aln wh Harlem Pri, hop to create the Harlem LGBTQ center g 2018 cludg a church space, hog and other social masters of divy stunt unrstands the homophobia existg all church nomatns, cludg black church. ” Brown referenced passag like Levic 18:22, the much-quoted “man shall not lie wh man, ” regularly cherry-picked for homosexual damnatn.

Even a new black-gay-owned place, Alibi, giv queer Harlem a new place to get down. NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The Atlah Church Harlem is known for s anti-gay msag. The sign outsi the church has been known to display msag such "JESUS WOULD STONE HOMOS" and "HARLEM IS A SODOMITE FREE ZONE.

AVOIDG FORECLOSURE FOR NOW, HARLEM CHURCH CELEBRAT WH ANTI-GAY VRL

Quiet as ’s kept, along wh Cullen, a number of the brightt lights of the Harlem Renaissance fell somewhere along the LGBT (lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr) rabow spectm. Cl McKay, Wallace Thurman, Ala Locke, Richard Bce Nugent, Angela Weld Grimké, Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Langston Hugh, all lumari of the New Negro lerary movement, have been intified as anywhere om openly gay (Nugent) to sexually ambiguo or myster (Hugh).

In a 1993 say, “The Black Man’s Burn, ” Henry Louis Gat Jr., The Root‘s edor--chief, not that the Renaissance “was surely as gay as was black.

The book Gay Voic of the Harlem Renaissance (2003), by A. Next month Cleis Prs will re-release Black Like Us: A Century of Lbian, Gay and Bisexual Ain-Amerin Fictn, which clus a meaty sectn on the Renaissance.