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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Assaulted lesbian musician posts online video alleging homophobia

Rhythm Turner, 25, singer and guitarist in local band, Rhythm and The Method believes she was the victim of a hate crime when Vincen Matthew Williams, 21, assaulted her, after she hugged her girlfriend, outside Canes Bar & Grill in Mission Beach on Thursday, May 14.

“I was assaulted because of my sexual orientation, because I choose to want to give my girlfriend a hug,” Turner said.

It was 10:30 p.m. and Turner had just finished performing with her band Dropjoy at the bar-restaurant. She was leaning against her car hugging her girlfriend, Lisa Viegas, when Williams and an unidentified man walked up and began to harass them, both women said.

“I was just giving her a hug goodbye and this guy walks up with his friend and he’s saying stuff like, ‘Oh my god was that two girls kissing? Are you guys, lesbians?’ Like up in our space, right beside the car,” Viegas said.

“They were saying, ‘We want to see you guys kiss. Did you really kiss?” Turner, who told them to leave, said.

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