I’m not going to laugh at Rev. James David Manning. But I can understand the impulse – Manning is after all the pastor of Harlem’s ATLAH Missionary Church, who this weekend posted a YouTube video entitled
“Don’t Let Your Son Cut Off His Penis.” It’s about Justin Bieber. And Obama. And demons.
Explaining that he and his followers are neither “lunatics” nor “haters,” he explained, “We’re talking about young girls, 6 to 10 years of age. They can be led or influenced to cut off their breasts once they get into puberty. They can be led to have operations — like Justin Bieber — they can think that the best choice for their life is to cut off their breasts. And then by the time they reach the age of 20 years old, they say, ‘I wish I had never cut off my breasts, I wish I had never mutilated my flesh, I wish I had never cut off my penis, I wish I had never done that, I was just young. And the people in the church or the people in the media said or gave the impression that I had a right to choose any kind of sexual orientation that I wanted to choose, and so I cut off my penis or I cut off my breasts.” He went on to vow, “I will chase every sodomite, I will chase every lesbo, I will chase every political leader with the power of God, with the chariots of fire, that these children be not misled by people in congregations and people in business or in politics like Obama that are influencing these children to throw their lives away the way Justin Bieber threw his life away… People need to wake the hell up and see what’s going on in our world! They need to understand just how diabolical this devil and evil spirit is.” Manning has in the past attracted some attention for putting up signs saying that
“Jesus would stone homos” and “Stoning is the law.”
