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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
I promised I would not post blog items until Thursday, but I could't help it with this juicy item. I guess this creep didn't attend the ex-gay ministries the Psycho Baptist Convention promotes.
A leader of the Southern Baptist Convention has been arrested in Oklahoma City on a lewdness complaint for allegedly propositioning a plainclothes policeman.
Police say the Reverend Lonnie Latham was arrested Tuesday night in a motel parking lot after soliciting an officer who was posing as a male prostitute.
Latham is pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church and is on the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. He has spoken out in the past against homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
After posting bond, Latham told K-F-O-R T-V in Oklahoma City that he was set up, and was in the area ministering to people.
Latham has spoken out against same-sex marriage and in support of a Southern Baptist Convention directive urging its 42,000 churches to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them that they can become heterosexual "if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their 'sinful, destructive lifestyle."'
It seems the good reverend went a little too far "befriending" gay people.
22 Comments:
I sure do not feel sympathy for this dude who abuses religion to demonize his fellow human beings. It makes me sick to my stomach when closet cases spew garbage about the gay community and then solicit a prostitute. How shameful. What a complete crock that this guy was in the area "ministering" to people. The only thing getting ministered was his hard member.
posted by BC WaterBoy, at
1/04/2006 7:51 PM
I'm still waiting on the *Breaking news* flash when Dobson or Falwell is caught *ministering* to their cock er um I mean Flock.
I bet he was ministering. On his knees ministering like a good christian boy should.
posted by Damien, at
1/04/2006 11:33 PM
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
Holy Flying Spaghetti Monester, you mean a hypocrite in the ranks of the cloth?
Organized religion, like the GOP, is the gift that just keeps giving and giving. .
posted by Christopher, at
1/04/2006 11:56 PM
I feel for him. If he is gay and he has to live in denial of his sexuality, then it must have been sheer desperation that caused him to proposition someone he thought was a prostitute. To him, his own sexuality is something to be ashamed off and considered perverted and dirty. Its bad enough if other people say that about you - but imagine if you believe in your heart of hearts that you are a filthy pervert? If he is gay, he has demonised himself more than he has demonised others.
His church friends and family won't hang around to support him through this one, and if people respond with smug, gleeful delight, then he's not going to find it easy to meet other people either.
If not, then I still feel for him, because to be set up in this way is unfair, no matter who you are or what you have done. What is worse, it will have given him a very negative image of "what the gay community do" which I suspect will fuel his homophobia.
This only debunks the myth about being an ex-gay. Clearly this man has so much low self-esteem about his true orientation. I guess he hasn't prayed hard enough. He'll probably continue denying who he really is and excuse himself by saying that he succumbed to temptation and that his "creator" will forgive him this time around. This is a sick man and I don't feel one iota of pity for him, he brought it on himself since he made a conscious decision to do what he did. I wonder if he's a Log Cabiner?
That picture of him looks like it was snapped as he entered a locker room and saw all dem sweaty mens that he was about to 'minister to'. Gary (NJ)
posted by Anonymous, at
1/05/2006 9:44 AM
This is going to be the sequel of "Brokeback Mountain" that takes place in the South called "Boredback Baptist"
posted by Anonymous, at
1/05/2006 10:52 AM
How about gay youngsters constantly being set up for academic failure and parental estrangement?
How about gay parents being set up in family court over custody battles?
How about brave and competent gay soldiers being set up for unmitigated discharge from service?
How about vulnerable gay teens being set up for suicide...?
How about gay men and women being set up for assault and murder?
Set UP? SET UP?!
His and those of the SBC, among others...it's their MISSION in life, to set up gays and lesbians for cruel treatment.
Now that he's gotten a taste of what he wants dished...he can't stomach it.
Figures.
I would have more sympathy for him, if he hadn't been using his pulpit to instruct his flock that gays and lesbians aren't unfit to walk the earth among other mortals.
posted by Regan, at
1/05/2006 3:42 PM
Oops, meant to say instructing his flock that gays and lesbian ARE unfit to walk the earth....
posted by Regan, at
1/05/2006 6:48 PM
His church friends and family won't hang around to support him through this one, and if people respond with smug, gleeful delight, then he's not going to find it easy to meet other people either.
According to what I have read on other sites, the church he works for has already dumped all his information off their web site - because that is "Christian" compassion. So it looks like he is SOL with them.
I certainly am enjoying his arrest too much - the schudenfraud is simply irresistible. But that in now way makes his arrest reasonable. He did not apparently offer $$ for sex (or he would have been arrested for solicitation). Instead he was arrested for lewd behavior simply because he suggested going back to a private place for sex. That is simply BS.
posted by CPT_Doom, at
1/06/2006 12:46 AM
my mother told me a story years ago about a young preacher in her hometown who constantly railled against fornication. well by and by he also knocked up an underage young lady.
the menfolk naturally were not pleased. he was summarily castrated and run out of town. a simple business taken care of in the 1930's.
her point was however, if you're constantly talking about it...you're also constantly thinking about it. jessie
posted by Anonymous, at
1/06/2006 4:17 AM
It's always fun to see a hypocrite exposed. But there's another aspect of this story that people are missing.
This man was not charged for soliciting a prostitute. The police clearly say that no discussion of money changing hands took place.
He is merely charged with striking up a conversation with someone, and suggesting that they go back to his private hotel room for consensual noncommercial sex.
Since when was that against the law? Isn't that the exact same conversation that takes place in straight bars all across American at closing time?
So why are gay people being singled out for prosecution?
I'm no fan of hypocrites like Latham. But wouldn't it be delicious irony if he was defended by Lamda Legal against a clearly discriminatory practice on the part of OKC police?
posted by Jim Burroway, at
1/06/2006 9:46 AM
Shame on you, Wayne Besen, for trying to be judge, jury, and executioner (socially speaking). This man has touched many people's lives in a positive way in the past and I was personally shocked to hear what he was accused of knowing the type of example he was as an interim pastor in a small town in Southeast Arkansas. To be sure it was the same person I pulled up the news online and discovered an arrest photo of him, to my dismay, which looked so much like a shell of the man we once knew. My additional impression of his arrest photo is that he has probably suffered a stroke or some mental break-down in recent years that has had a tremendously adverse effect on his mental status. His left eye even appears to be drooping somewhat which could be evidence of such damage. Most people are too ignorant to realize that there are often underlying medical conditions which affect the mind and ultimately the behavior of individuals. Even brain tumors have been discovered to have caused socially unacceptable behavior. Too bad that Lonnie happened to be in the field of religion. Perhaps had he been a politician, you all would cry "Latham for President."
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