Pastor and noted gospel singer Kim Burrell is facing backlash for homophobic comments she made in a recent sermon at the Pentecostal church she founded in Houston, Texas — the rather ironically named Love & Liberty Fellowship. “I came to tell you about sin,” Burrell is captured saying in this video, “That perverted homosexual spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women.”
That video ignited controversy, which Burrell addressed in a Facebook Live video the following day. In it, she reiterated her belief that homosexuality is “sin… against the nature of God.” These comments have since resulted in her removal from an upcoming Ellen DeGeneres Show performance, for which she was scheduled to appear alongside Pharrell Williams, who tapped her for Hidden Figures soundtrack cut “I See a Victory.”
Both Pharrell and Hidden Figures star Janelle Monáe have since condemned Burrell’s comments on Instagram. “I unequivocally repudiate ANY AND ALL hateful comments against the LGBTQ community,” wrote Monáe, reposting a statement Pharrell made earlier. And they are not the only ones to sound off on social media; Frank Ocean’s mom Katonya Breaux also took to Twitter.
Me: Son, can we crop Kim Burrells voice out of your song??
– katonya breaux (@katonya) January 1, 2017
I mean damn. Hypocrisy and the inciting of hate pisses me off. Opportunistic &?%#€!!
– katonya breaux (@katonya) January 1, 2017
“Me: Son, can we crop Kim Burrells voice out of your song??” Breaux tweeted, in reference to Burrell’s appearance on Blond track “Godspeed.” “I mean damn,” Breaux continued in a follow-up tweet, “Hypocrisy and the inciting of hate pisses me off. Opportunistic &?%#€!!.”
Long before Burrell appeared on Ocean’s most recent record, the enigmatic L.A. singer expressed his fondness for her powerful sound. In 2010, Ocean wrote about his Christian upbringing on Tumblr — the same platform he used to mourn those lost in the Orlando massacre, to celebrate the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, and to reveal his own bisexuality. “Church was the hood julliard [sic] to me. all the coldest musicians came out of there,” Ocean wrote, accompanying the text with a video of Burrell performing “Home” in 2007. “The lady in the video…summa cum laude.”
Ocean himself has yet to comment, but his Orlando Tumblr post — which interfaces with issues of religion and homosexuality — is worth revisiting. “We are all God’s children, I heard,” he wrote. “I left my siblings out of it and spoke with my maker directly and I think he sounds a lot like myself. If I being myself were more awesome at being detached from my own story in a way I being myself never could be. I wanna know what others hear, I’m scared to know but I wanna know what everyone hears when they talk to God. Do the insane hear the voice distorted? Do the indoctrinated hear another voice entirely?”
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Text Emily Manning