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Another Gay Pastor Revealed in Colorado?!?
Posted by wizeGurl
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In the "is there something in the air out there" department, yet another evangelical preacher and church founder in Colorado, this one in the Denver area, has been forced to reveal his long-hidden homosexuality. Rev. Paul Barnes of Grace Chapel confessed to his congregation by video last Sunday that he'd known he was gay since the age of 5, but had managed to keep it (mostly) under wraps for the almost 50 years since then. His wife and two grown children were surprised, too. |
For some reason, though, this story seems more sad than the Ted Haggard saga. For openers, though Rev. Barnes wasn't exactly gay-friendly on the pulpit, he wasn't active in anti-gay political movements. He didn't take a stand, for instance, on Colorado's Amendment 43, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman only. His background doesn't seem to contain much in the way of gay-bashing rhetoric generally. In fact, he was apparently one of that rare breed of evangelical pastors who avoided politics and focused on God. (What a concept!) So his tale lacks the delicious schadenfreude of watching a two-faced hypocrit being revealed as the object of his own virulent public statements.
Instead, Barnes relates that the only time his father ever talked to him about sex, it was to describe what he would do if a "fag" approached him. One has to imagine that the picture was not a pretty one. (Brokeback Mountain, anyone?)
Barnes reports that he thought, "'Is that how you'd feel about me?' It was like a knife in my heart, and it made me feel even more closed."
Yowch. Thanks for the unconditional support, Dad. | More details. | |
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