Oprah Winfrey fans are very angry at her decision to debut “The Book of John Gray” on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) this week.
The show, which stars Pastor John Gray, examines his personal life and medical challenges as he advises parishioners at his Houston church.
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Gray has a well-documented history of maligning the gay community, making no qualms about sharing his views on social media over the years.
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In 2013, he tweeted:
“Homosexuality is no different from fornication, adultery, lying or any other sin God was clear about. It’s all the same-4those who believe.”
Another post finds Pastor Gray questioning Target on their decision to make their bathrooms gender-neutral:
“I won’t shop @target again. My son is a boy. Boys like certain toys. That’s not a gender or sexuality issue. You’ve overstepped & u will see,” he wrote.
Related: Um, Why Are Oprah And Gayle Teaming Up With Antigay Chick-Fil-A?
Perhaps most troublingly, on the day that same-sex marriage became legal in the United States, he told his followers:
“The Christian President of United States believes something different from the God he serves. Anyone else a little concerned?”
We’ll update the post if Oprah makes a statement regarding her decision.
In the meantime, what do you think of the fact that Oprah is collaborating with Gray?
Sound off in the comments below.
h/t: Attitude
1EqualityUSA
Christ spoke against divorce, though not a word about us.
Heywood Jablowme
That’s a good point. But maybe not the one you intended. Jesus was a f*ckin’ lunatic who thought divorce was a “sin.” He declared that married people should NEVER divorce no matter what. This insane belief caused tremendous misery in the Christian world over the centuries. Even as recently as the 1960s, divorce in the US was hard to do.
Nowadays, fortunately, divorce has become routine for heterosexual so-called Christians (especially in those hypocritical Republican states!), but it’s important to keep in mind that Jesus was mentally ill.
dwes09
Actually, he said that because marriage in those days was (and in some places is still) a property contract in which families exchanged women for goods and or social standing. Marriage for love was seen as highly suspect and discouraged if not forbidden. Divorce brought shame on the family who provided the woman…like selling a sick cow or sheep.
Mental illness is in many ways a social construct, and though some of the stories depict Jesus as being pretty out there, he may have been no more so than any modern guru. Remember he never referred to himself (if he is accepted as being an actual historical person despite there being more historical evidence for John the Baptist than there is for Jesus) as the literal son of God, but used terms other Jews of the time might have in referring to themselves.
JamJewel
But gawd had forty days on that mountain and the only mention of anything sexual was the wife coveting…. which could just as easily be included under the coveting of the neighbors goods because in that time, a wife was property. So gawd must have thought everything sexual was a good thing. But the christians never mention that!
Oakknot
OMG, Oprah, free speech is sacred to Americans, but hate speech? No way, sister. We are equal with every person, Grey denies our reality, our equality. Please lose this hate monger. It’s a black and white issue. No place for Grey.
designdude
I have called my cable company (Spectrum) and discontinued the cable package that includes the OWN Channel. I suggest you do too. I chose another variety package without OWN and. saved $10 a month. I won’t pay for hate, even indirectly.
1EqualityUSA
Beautiful.
Rustie
Greeat idea!!
dwes09
I have always found Winfrey to be extremely disingenuous. Creepy actually. Never understood how people bought into her bull. She is, after all, an actress. Her television persona is an act and probably has no relation to what she actually believes (if she believes in anything other than wealth).
JamJewel
That is exactly what Hulk Hogan claimed and Alex Jones is now claiming, that what we have been exposed to is a ‘character’ they play, a ‘persona,’ and not the ‘real’ people that they are in private. Makes you wonder then about all the phony people we see every day in media…..
…..
1EqualityUSA
Seekers never stop. They work on others when they’re done screwing themselves up. Keep your beliefs off of me.
dean089
Exactly! Oprah loves us when we do a minstrel show for her TV show but that’s not the same thing as equality and respect. Echoing what RuPaul said recently, Oprah is just another one of those who treats gays like accessories. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that it’s anything else.
paul dorian lord fredine
oprah winFRED? really? and in the headline! you might as well just say ‘we’re printing this because we don’t like her’.
He BGB
I never really thought Oprah gets gays. I definitely don’t think it’s on her priority list. Whenever I have watched her talk about gays or transgender ir whatever I felt like she was ignorant. Oprah is a good student but many people don’t really “get” us unless they have close relationships with gay people. I think she’s had employees that were gay but she never thought about their sexuality.I think she can be quite contemptuous of people sometimes without realizing it. This is difficult to explain but just something I feel about her. She’s definitely out of touch and prob can’t help it to isolate herself from the real world. Can you imagine being her? This pastor thing is just an example of her feeling “spiritual” but not realizing the people she hurts.
JamJewel
Well… she has already said – in her Entertainment Weekly interview about her relationship with Ava DuVernay – that she doesn’t trust people or have many friends because people always end up asking her for a favor. So, there you have it.
1EqualityUSA
Good thing Jesus didn’t feel this way.
He BGB
He didn’t get the memo that God made gay people gay. Adultery, etc are choices. Does he not realize that gay people wouldn’t choose that especially back in the day. Why would they choose a life where you’re hated and outcast from society?
Kieran
I’m not one to throw around Scripture, but here’s one for the Rev. Fatso:
“Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony”
(Proverbs 23:2)
jcoberkrom
She probably just thought she could make a buck!
1EqualityUSA
No, she’s a seeker who is going through the honeymoon phase, delayed by her climb. Scary money is a seeker with bucks going through the honeymoon phase.
1EqualityUSA
Beiber’s another one to watch.
natekerchel
Jesus mentally ill? How about he never actually existed in the first place? There is not a scrap of evidence for the existence of this character. So why people use his words as any kind of proof or evidence of anything is very strange. Even if such a person did once exist he would simply be the equivalent of an anti-Roman Jewish rebel and social philosopher. Not the Son of God – merely the son of Mary. He should be equated with the likes of Confucius or Buddha not as some kind of infallible deity.
1EqualityUSA
One’s beliefs have no place in our laws. We are equal. Get away from me, Ms. Winfred.
natekerchel
Forgot to mention Oprah – what people do says more about them than what they say. Giving someone like that the oxygen of publicity is being complicit in his spreading of hate.
billybob2003
Bitch.
crowebobby
I thought the president of the United States was supposed to serve the people of the United States, not his or anyone else’s god (small “g” deliberate).
1EqualityUSA
Religious leaders are inept. Politicians pander. If pastors, preachers, or popes lack the talent to win hearts in appropriate settings, political oppression will do. Question the faith of any man of God slipping into the futility of politics. Both are compromised, and neither are satisfied. Coercion from the Supreme Court will be rectified, in time. Futile.
GayEGO
I am surprised that Oprah would give an anti-gay anything a talk show. I guess we shall just have to wait and see what happens.
tony-e
Love his comment about Target. “Boys like certain toys.” He’s speaking for every child too now? What about the boys that play with dolls (like me when I was a kid, though I did play with trucks and toy guns too) and enjoy tea parties and dress-up? Or the girls that would rather play with Legos and Tonka trucks instead of dolls (like my cousin’s daughter)?
lambchopp59
Last I checked the HRC shopping guide a few years back, I discovered the OOFRA wimpry network to earn a score of zero or near zero on their equality scale. I haven’t checked it lately, a lot of companies that used to earn zero have improved their score considerably in recent years, in concert with public opinion about gay discrimination.