Editor’s note: Read this update.Â
A gay Tennessee couple was reportedly attacked — physically and verbally assaulted — by a Christian Pastor and his deacons to prevent the same-sex couple from entering the Pastor’s church. Sadly, the pastor is the father of one of the two members of the gay couple. Also sadly, the church members and bystanders did not lift a finger to help the couple or to stop church leaders from perpetrating the crime. Further, initially, local authorities refused to allow the couple to file charges.
Via WBBJ:
“I went over to take the keys out of the ignition and all the sudden I hear someone say ‘sick’em,'” said Gibson County resident, Jerry Pittman Jr.
Pittman said the attacked was prompted by the pastor of the church, Jerry Pittman, his father.
“My uncle and two other deacons came over to the car per my dad’s request. My uncle smash me in the door as the other deacon knocked my boyfriend back so he couldn’t help me, punching him in his face and his chest. The other deacon came and hit me through my car window in my back,” said Pittman. He said bystanders did not offer assistance. He said the deacon yelled derogatory homosexual slurs, even after officers arrived. He said the officers never intervened to stop the deacons from yelling the slurs.
Offensively, the ABC affiliate news report allows the sheriff on camera to even suggest that the couple might have deserved the violence they encountered, without challenge, and offers an impending divorce of the Pastor as a reason for his hostile actions. Great act of “journalism.”
The elder Pittman is the Pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Humboldt (listed in news reports as as Fruitland) Tennessee.
Probably a safe assumption the Grace Fellowship Church takes advantage of IRS rules to be a tax-exempt religious organization. Your tax dollars pay for that which Grace Fellowship Church does not.
http://swfs.bimvid.com/bimvid_player-3_2_7.swf?x-bim-callletters=WBBJ
(hat tip: Joe.My.God.)