Pastor, D.C. Church Offer Gay African Americans A Message of Acceptance and Responsibility

In the middle of a sermon, Bishop Rainey Cheeks felt his medicine bottle bulging in his pocket and realized he hadn’t taken his pills. He paused in the pulpit and faced the congregation in his tiny storefront church.

“Excuse me,” Cheeks remembers telling his parishioners last year as he poured three pills into his hand. “This is my HIV medicine. I’m going to take it now.”

As he washed down the pills with water, Cheeks saw some members staring with wide eyes. Everybody knew that their pastor, an imposing man with flowing dreadlocks who once competed in taekwondo championships, is gay. But not everyone knew that he is HIV-positive.

“Go ahead, Rev,” a few congregants urged. But most shrugged and waited for the bishop to swallow and get on with delivering the good word.

Inner Light Ministries in the District’s H Street corridor might seem like a traditional black church, with fiery sermons, electric gospel music, a soulful choir and a congregation that sways and claps in rhythm. But it is hardly that.

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Gay men booted from altar duty Canada.com

A gay man has filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against a Catholic bishop after being removed from his volunteer job as an altar server because of his sexual orientation.

Jim Corcoran was asked to step down from his role at St. Michael’s Church in Cobourg, 100 kilometres east of Toronto, after 12 of his fellow parishioners complained to the diocese of Peterborough.

In an interview, Corcoran said he was told by his parish priest in April that he and his partner would have to end their altar duties. He said it was Bishop Nicola De Angelis’s decision, not the priest’s.

Corcoran added that he and his partner of 19 years have been chaste for years, which makes the decision to remove them even more difficult to comprehend.

Corcoran, 50, said he is seeking $20,000 from each parishioner and $25,000 from the bishop. He said he wants the money to be donated to a charity of his choice.

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