Democratic NYC Mayor Eric Adams forces Christian minister — who wrote book that 'called homosexuality a sin' — to resign from education panel

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams forced Christian minister Rev. to resign from an education panel — to which he recently appointed her — because it was discovered that she had authored a book that "called homosexuality a sin," the New York Times said.

What are the details?

Barrett-Layne leads Staten Island’s Reach Out and Touch Ministries, the New York Daily News said, adding that she had been one of Adams’ picks for the Panel for Educational Policy, which approves contracts for the city's Department of Education.

While Adams’ office had lauded Barrett-Layne as a minister who "spends her time inspiring people with her speaking and teaching in Bible studies," just hours after the Daily News published a story about her "anti-gay rhetoric," the paper said Barrett-Layne got the boot.

In her 2013 book “Challenging Your Disappointments,” Barrett-Layne wrote that Christian leaders "struggle with the same temptations of drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, pedophilia, stealing, lying, envy, covetousness, and every other sin" that people in the congregation "struggle with,” the Daily News said.

The Daily News characterized the aforementioned passage as placing "same-sex relationships in the same category of 'sin' as pedophilia and other crimes."

'A virulent homophobe'

LBGTQ advocates were furious and demanded Barrett-Layne's ouster.

Allen Roskoff, a longtime LGBTQ rights activist, told the Daily News he texted as much to Adams a few hours before Barrett-Layne was asked to resign.

Roskoff added to the paper that her firing was “only a partial victory" and that Barrett-Layne's "replacement needs to be someone from the LGBTQ community. We’re only halfway there.”

Ex-Queens Councilman Daniel Dromm, who's gay, told the Daily News prior to Barrett-Layne's ouster that the mayor "appointed a virulent homophobe to a panel that will have direct impact on LGBTQIA+ students and staff; it’s unbelievable." The Panel for Educational Policy has say over public school curriculums, the paper said.

What did Barrett-Layne have to say?

"I feel bullied," Barrett-Layne told the Times in an interview. "I believe that the city is being bullied. I feel as though my character, my name, my church have been defamed with lies, and that everything was taken out of context.”

She also told the Times her comments were based on interviews with people she had counseled or conducted for the book and that she's considering legal action against the city.

“I’m not homophobic. The answer is no, absolutely not,” Barrett-Layne added to the Times.

Anything else?

Christian commentator Michael Brown took issue with Barrett-Layne's ouster, asking "was she equating homosexuality with pedophilia? Obviously not — that is, no more than she was equating lying with pedophilia, or envy with pedophilia, or 'every other sin' with pedophilia."

Brown added that "her grave transgression was that she simply stated that homosexual practice was a sin. In other words, she agreed with the Bible. She affirmed what Christians have taught for two millennia. She wrote what Paul (and others) wrote in the pages of Scripture. For this, she was promptly dismissed."

(H/T: FaithWire)