Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne – Photo: Reach Out and Touch Ministries
Mayor Eric Adams has removed a Staten Island pastor, who once equated homosexuality with pedophilia, from a key educational post, less than six hours after announcing her appointment.
On Tuesday, Adams announced Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne, the head of Reach Out and Touch Ministries in Staten Island, as one of his nine picks to the Panel for Educational Policy, which serves as a governing body for the city Department of Education and approves its contracts.
In a press release, Adams’ office described Barrett-Layne as a seasoned minister who “spends her time inspiring people with her speaking and teaching in Bible studies.”
But later the same day, following reporting by the New York Daily News outlining her history of anti-gay rhetoric, a spokesperson for the mayor announced the appointment was being rescinded, saying the administration had been unaware of Barrett-Layne’s past writings expressing anti-LGBTQ sentiments.
As reported by the Daily News, in a 2013 book, Challenging Your Disappointments, Barrett-Layne placed same-sex relationships in the same category of “sin” as pedophilia and other crimes when discussing “temptations” facing Christian leaders and their followers.
“Leaders struggle with the same temptations of drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, pedophilia, stealing, lying, envy, covetousness, and every other sin that the congregation struggle with,” she wrote.
In that same book, Barrett-Layne raised concerns about the prevalence of homosexuality among incarcerated people, writing, “They live in the grip of fornicating homosexual lifestyles.”
In another book from 2004, When Your Mess Becomes the Message, Barrett-Layne claimed her 3-year-old daughter told her “she was a boy” after being present for a counseling session Barrett-Layne gave to a lesbian woman. She wrote that she and her husband “began to militantly and violently pray for, with, and over our daughter.”
“We prayed against every spirit that was not of God, including the spirit of homosexuality,” she wrote. “At the end of that prayer, my daughter asked me if she was a girl. When I told her yes, she happily began to sing and rejoice about being mommy and daddy’s little girl. To tell you this was one of the most frightening experiences I had with my little girl is an understatement.”
Barrett-Layne’s abrupt termination is the fourth time since taking office just three months ago that Adams has found himself mired in a controversy surrounding past comments by anti-gay ministers he has appointed to various posts within his administration.
Adams previously named Rev. Erick Salgado, an evangelical pastor from southern Brooklyn, as assistant commissioner in the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, despite Salgado’s past rhetoric attacking homosexuality, his actions protesting the legalization of marriage equality, and statements he made suggesting that statues honoring gay victims killed by the Nazis were a “betrayal of the community” and “disrespectful” to those who were killed in the Holocaust.
He tapped Rev. Gilford Monrose, a pastor with a history of anti-LGBTQ views and statements, to head the Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships.
He also attempted to tap former City Councilmember Rev. Fernando Cabrera for the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health, but upon receiving pushback, named him a senior spiritual advisor in the Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships.
Cabrera courted the most controversy after past comments he made praising Uganda’s passage of a law criminalizing homosexuality came to light. The original version of the bill had proposed the death penalty for those convicted of homosexuality. Cabrera also praised Uganda for not caving to U.S. economic pressure by repealing its bans on same-sex marriage and abortion, asserting that Christians should “take their rightful place” in government and use their positions to promote their personal religious views.
Cabrera, Salgado, and Monrose all remain in their current positions.
Allen Roskoff, a longtime LGBTQ rights activist who has been critical of Adams’ appointments, told the Daily News he texted the mayor to voice his displeasure with Barrett-Layne’s appointment. He said he was pleased by the mayor’s decision to rescind the appointment, but called it only a “partial victory.”
“Her replacement needs to be someone from the LGBTQ community,” he said. “We’re only halfway there.”
Prior to the withdrawal of Barrett-Layne’s appointment, former Queens Councilmember Danny Dromm, a gay man, expressed concern that, in her new position, she would get a say over what curriculum is taught in public school classrooms — an issue that has been highlighted in other states where Republicans have sought to pass laws restricting LGBTQ-related content and discussions in schools, such as Florida and Tennessee.
“That the mayor has appointed a virulent homophobe to a panel that will have direct impact on LGBTQIA+ students and staff, it’s unbelievable,” Dromm, who previously chaired the City Council’s Education Committee, said. “She’s got to go.”
Prosecutors presented evidence and testimony at trial that Nicholas Encarnacion sexually assaulted his victim in the stairwell of their apartment building.
A Manhattan man convicted of raping a transgender woman in a Lower East Side apartment stairwell in 2022 has been sentenced to 12 years in state prison.
On August 26, Encarnacion appeared before Judge Kathryn Paek in New York City Criminal Court, where his victim, Siobhan Ebert, delivered a statement before sentencing, according to amNewYork.
Encarnacion and Ebert had been neighbors in the same Two Bridges apartment building on the Lower East Side.
According to evidence presented at trial, on October 9, 2022, around 10:30 p.m., Ebert was returning to her apartment after dinner with her fiancé and friends.
New York City has opened Ace's Place, its first shelter dedicated specifically to serving transgender and gender-nonconforming people experiencing homelessness. Operated in partnership with the Bronx-based LGBTQ nonprofit Destination Tomorrow, the 150-bed facility in Long Island City, Queens, will provide transitional housing and wraparound support services for residents.
Fully funded by the city for now, Ace's Place will receive $65 million to remain operational through 2030. In addition to housing, the shelter will offer on-site psychiatric care, medical referrals, culinary and GED classes, job training, financial literacy and life skills workshops, counseling, and other comprehensive services. Destination Tomorrow will manage day-to-day operations.
The Turning Point USA co-founder, who once declared Pride a “sin” and opposed LGBTQ rights, was killed during a campus event at Utah Valley University.
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed by an assassin's bullet during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
The 31-year-old was the co-founder of Turning Point USA, an organization advocating for conservative politics and education on high school and college campuses.
At the time of the shooting, Kirk, who appeared on campus as part of his "American Comeback Tour," was taking questions from people in the crowd while seated at a "Prove Me Wrong" table in the Sorensen Center courtyard on campus, according to The Associated Press.
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