COVER

With open arms
A handful of black area churches welcome gays

KATHERINE VOLIN
Friday, July 29, 2005

For gay people of faith in Washington, D.C., choosing a place to worship where sermons opposing homosexuality are not lobbed from the pulpit can be a dicey proposition.

This can be even more daunting for gay African Americans seeking spiritual solace within a predominantly black congregation.

A recent sermon by Rev. Willie Wilson, the longtime pastor at Union Temple Baptist Church in Southeast D.C., in which he said “lesbianism is about to take over our community” and offered offensive descriptions about sexual acts involving gay people, illuminated this dilemma.

Nonetheless, there are at least seven houses of worship in Washington with predominantly African-American congregations that attract gay and lesbian congregants. They are: Covenant Baptist Church, Faith Temple, Freedom Fellowship Christian Church, Greater Hope Christian Church International, Inner Light Ministries, Unity Fellowship Church of Washington, D.C., and Unity of Washington, D.C.

Rev. Dennis Wiley and Rev. Dr. Christine Wiley, a married African-American couple, preside at the 600-member Covenant Baptist Church in Southwest D.C. In addition to offering gay congregants a supportive place to worship, the church also operates an HIV/AIDS ministry.

“Jesus says nothing about the question of sexual orientation, but he does say a lot [about] loving one’s neighbor and how we should treat one’s neighbor,” Dennis Wiley said.

He has been pastor at Covenant Baptist since 1985. His wife was assistant pastor there and recently became co-pastor as part of the couple’s ongoing effort to become as inclusive as possible.

“The Baptist tradition is pretty sexist and homophobic and all of that, but we’re trying to empower all of our people,” Christine Wiley said. “[Our] No. 1 strategy is that we will invite everyone to church regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.”

Covenant Baptist has a mixture of heterosexual and homosexual congregants, but Christine Wiley said many of its gay members have not come out.

“It’s not necessarily comfortable here at Covenant for gay people because we’re going to talk about [homosexuality],” she said, adding that the church leaders “still have to respect persons who are not out.”

Her husband said the church’s emphasis on the African roots of its congregants should make Covenant Baptist members even more aware of discrimination and the damage it causes.

“We, as the members of a black race that have endured so much oppression, should be the last ones to visit that same kind of attitude and behavior toward others,” he said.

On July 3, Wilson, the national executive leader of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Million Man March (known as the Millions More Movement), told his parishioners in sexually graphic terms that homosexuality was unnatural.

“I ain’t homophobic, because everybody in here got something wrong with him. … But when you get down to this thing, women falling down on another woman, strapping yourself up with something, it ain’t real. That thing ain’t got no feeling in it. It ain’t natural,” he said. “Any time somebody got to slap some grease on your behind, and stick something in you, it’s something wrong with that. Your butt ain’t made for that.”

After Wilson received criticism for his remarks, the Washington Post reported that during a sermon on July 17, he said Union Temple had done more to reach out to gay people than any other church in the city, “unless it’s a gay church.”

Wilson did not elaborate and did not return Blade calls to clarify the remark.

Union Temple has an extensive AIDS ministry outreach program, which includes providing financial assistance and counseling and educational programs, according to its Web site.

In 2000, Wilson hosted a discussion to try to unify gay and straight African Americans. At the time, he said, “The church must not be religious haters but people who know how to love.”

Several men opposed to homosexuality interrupted the meeting and told Wilson they were disappointed that he would convene such a gathering. Wilson told the Blade that night that, “We’ve got to do a whole lot, and there’s a need for serious dialogue and communication.”

As a result of Wilson’s recent remarks, however, Rev. Graylan Hagler, the presiding pastor at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, canceled a Millions More Movement meeting that was scheduled to take place there in August.

Hagler, who is African American, said he canceled the meeting “largely because of the comments that Rev. Wilson made in his July 3 sermon and the hurt and the division it inflicted upon the community … bigotry cannot be excused and cannot be supported.”

Local black gay activists as well as former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and Councilmember Carol Schwartz (R-At-Large) criticized Wilson for the sermon. The activists had been trying unsuccessfully to work with march organizers to be included in the Millions More Movement. They are now considering a boycott of the event.

In addition to Covenant Baptist, several other local churches with predominantly black congregations welcome gay worshipers.

“When we look at the theology of Jesus, it was about inclusion, not exclusion,” said Bishop Kwabena Rainey Cheeks, the gay founder of Inner Light Ministries, which he said has about 50 members, most of whom are gay. “In the Christian church, we have many different denominations and many different views, from the fundamental to the very liberal.”

Cheeks is co-founder of Us Helping Us: People Into Living Inc., an HIV/AIDS organization founded here in 1985 to support black gay and bisexual men.

Rev. Dyan McCray, the lesbian pastor of Unity Fellowship Church in Northwest D.C., also said she does not condemn from the pulpit. She said the church has 200 members, and most there also are gay.

“When you stand up in a pulpit on Sunday morning, people that come, come to be fed,” said McCray, who also is a board member for the Mautner Project, a national lesbian health organization. “They don’t come to listen to hatred or to be hurt.”

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