UPDATE 1:
Rod McCollum has posted one of the legal complaints here. He also finds a “THIRD Sex Abuse Lawsuit Filed Against Pastor Eddie Long.” Why am I not surprised?…
UPDATE 2:
NY Post: “The Atlanta megachurch leader accused of coercing young men into sex canceled his previously-scheduled radio interview Thursday after a third man came forward with allegations of sexual misdeeds.”
# # #
Two young men claim that while seventeen and eighteen years old, they were forced into a sexual relationship with popular suburban Atlanta Baptist megachurch Bishop Eddie Long.
A lawsuit states,
“Defendant Long has a pattern and practice of singling out a select group of young male church members and using his authority as bishop over them to ultimately bring them to a point of engaging in a sexual relationship.”
Of course, Long denies the charges.
Via CNN yesterday:
RICK SANCHEZ:
I want you to listen to what the bishop told us here on CNN when we asked him about this last year.
BISHOP EDDIE LONG, NEW BIRTH MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH: We have had members of our congregation, et cetera, who were of a gay lifestyle, et cetera, and that’s nothing that we can deny. A lot of times, we never addressed it. We act like it wasn’t there, et cetera.
And when you get in the body of Christ and people of faith, I’m finding that different sides, the way you interpret scripture. I think the bottom line is of the whole thing is, number one, respect, number two, love. But if my conviction would be — personally, if my conviction was, well, I don’t believe in the gay lifestyle, and I believe it’s not God’s way.
CNN Reporter ED LAVANDERA:
And so basically what we have to go on is the documents we have been talking to from here. But when you read through this, one of the things that it mentions several times is that essentially what they accuse the bishop of doing is kind of creating this atmosphere where engaging — in the words here, engaging in a sexual relationship was a healthy component of developing your spiritual life, that that’s exactly — they say that that’s what the bishop had convinced them of.
And there’s a couple stories in here where this was a ritualistic thing that happened, that at some point he had chosen — and you had mentioned this idea of being Bishop Long’s spiritual sons. And in these documents, it says that this was actually like a private ceremony that had taken place.
SANCHEZ: Kind of like wedding vows?
LAVANDERA: Yes, like a covenant that had taken place between Bishop Long and these two men, where essentially the bishop is saying to them, I will be your spiritual father, there for you all the time.
And then this video posted today:
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=bestoftv/2010/09/22/sanchez.minister.accused.cnn
Images from the Bishop’s website