February 28, 2014
Anti-Gay Pastor's Sign Angers Harlem Neighbors, Inspires Hilarious Video
EDGE READ TIME: 2 MIN.
An anti-gay anti-Obama sign in front of a church in Harlem has become the center of controversy, angering neighbors in the traditionally African-American, but increasingly gentrified, Upper Manhattan neighborhood.
"Obama Has Released The Homo Demons On The Black Man," reads the sign in front of the Atlah World Missionary Church on W. 123rd St and Lenox Ave. It continues: "Look Out Black Woman, A White Homo May Take Your Man."
"There are a lot of white homosexual men that are seeking after homosexual black men," said the author of the sign, Pastor James David Manning who was asked by local ABC affiliate Channel 7 Eyewitness News if he knew his message would anger neighbors.
"Do I look like I'm afraid to you?" he told Eyewitness News.
Manning also asserts that President Barack Obama, although married and a father is secretly gay.
"Being married does not exclude nor exempt anyone from being homosexual" he said.
In an interview with The Village Voice Manning explained the inspiration behind his sign in further detail:
"So we have the outing of people like Jason Collins, who is an alleged basketball player, and Michael Sam, a football player. Two blacks that have come out of the closet and have received national acclaim from Obama, from Michelle "the fist bumper" Obama, from Oprah Winfrey, from all black people encouraging more black men to come out of the closet. All of these black men taking their gay marching orders from Obama are 'being scooped up by white homos."
Neighbors interviewed by Eyewitness News are incensed with the sign's message and said:
"I can't believe that a pastor would put that up there."
"It may be free speech but it's free hate speech."
"That's inappropriate. That's not something you should put up there and I'm a black woman."
This is far from the first time Manning has propagated unsubstantiated claims against the president by linking him with homosexuality. Gay Star News reports that in 2013, he interviewed Mia Marie Pope,a woman who claimed to be a schoolmate of Obama in the 1970's who said that the president was the sexual toy of older gay white men. According to The Blaze, he frequently refers to the president as "long-legged mack daddy" and compares him to Hitler and Stalin
On a lighter note, Manning's sign was the inspiration for comedian / drag personality Dewey Chaffee's alter ego, the "Ultra-glamorous stroke survivor," Lady Winifred's latest rant on ScrewYouVids