After Ellen DeGeneres Cancelled Her Performance, This Singer Tried to Justify Her Homophobia
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Ellen DeGeneres has canceled a performance by Kim Burrell in response to the gospel singer's homophobic comments.
Burrell's performance was nixed after video surfaced of her telling a Texas church that "the perverted homosexual spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion... has deceived many men and women," according to the Associated Press. Burrell was originally set perform alongside Pharrell Williams and Janelle Monae, who denounced Burrell's comments after they were publicized.
Burrell responded to the controversy in a Facebook video, and it reveals a common type of religiously based homophobic rhetoric.
"I love you and God loves you," she said. "But God hates the sin."
The argument implies that it's possible to hate homosexuality but not homosexuals.
In 2013, religious blogger Micah J. Murray wrote in the Huffington Post about his realization that the "God hates the sin not the sinner" argument is really just a rationalization for homophobia.
"And despite all my theological disclaimers about how I’m just as much a sinner too, it’s not the same," he wrote. "We don’t use that phrase for everybody else. Only them. Only 'the gays.' That’s the only place where we make 'sinner' the all-encompassing identity."
Burrell may truly follow the "hate the sin, not the sinner" ethos: She worked with singer Frank Ocean after he revealed he was attracted to men in 2012, and she appeared on Ocean's 2016 album "Blonde."
After the recent controversy, Katonya Breaux, Ocean's mother, tweeted that he should cut Burrell out of the track "Godspeed."
"Hypocrisy and inciting of hate pisses me off," she wrote.
