‘Anti-Gay’ Pastor To Speak At Black Church Meeting With Sanders [VIDEO]

Daily Caller ^ | 4/23/16 | Ron Brynaert

[markomalley]

Three days before the Maryland Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders will be joining a community conversation at a black church with actor Danny Glover and the two leading members of his state steering committee there: former NAACP head Ben Jealous and a pastor who’s been criticized for perceived anti-gay and anti-women sermons.

The “Community Conversations on Young Men of Color” is scheduled to start around 7:30 p.m. EST Saturday evening at Carter Memorial Church in West Baltimore.

Sanders announced on March 28 that Jealous would become the chairman of his Maryland steering committee and that Dr. Jamal Bryant, who recently made news for calling ministers who met with Donald Trump “prostitutes,” would be co-chair. Bryant said, “It is my prayer, my hope and my vote that [Bernie Sanders] will be the next president of not just Black America, but the yet-to-be United States of America.”

The pastor is the “youngest person to be inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame,” and the founder of the Empowerment Temple African American Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland, which boasts 10,000 members.

While he has been hailed for “championing equality among people of all walks,” he has also drawn criticism for perceived attacks on gays and women.

In early January, just a few months before being tapped for Sanders’ steering committee, St. Petersburg Florida Mayor Rick Kriseman refused to give Bryant a key to the city due to a fiery sermon from 2012, in which Bryant said, “Homosexuality is not the only sin, but it is a sin. It is not an alternative lifestyle, it is an alternative rebellion.”

Last December, Pastor Bryant rejected an invitation to meet with Republican candidate Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City, along with over 100 black minister from across the nation. Bryant told the New York Daily News that those who attended were “prostituting themselves and, in essence, the black church.”

However, not all the minsters who attended were pro-Trump. North Carolina Bishop George Bloomer said he attended because he wanted to “call him on” racial slurs by some of his supporters at rallies.

In a June of 2014 sermon, Bryant faced criticism after quoting a line from a Chris Brown hip-hong song: “These hoes ain’t loyal!” Brown was once convicted of a felony assault for beating pop star Rhianna, his girlfriend at the team, before an awards ceremony.

Bryant said on Twitter that the “sensationalized quote” was an “incomplete assesment” of a “30 minute message.” A reporter for The Root complained, “Churchgoers come to church to hear the word of God, not the words of a woman beater, especially coming from the mouth of a confessed adulterer.”