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Ellen DeGeneres Nixes Kim Burrell Performance After Gospel Singer’s Rabid Anti-Gay Sermon Goes Public [Video]

By Patricia Ramirez
Published on: 16:00 PST, Jan 4, 2017

Famed gospel singer Kim Burrell was scheduled to appear and perform on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday, but openly gay Ellen has nixed that plan after footage of a blatantly homophobic sermon went viral. Burrell, who is also a pastor, was supposed to perform her new track “I See a Victory,” a song from the Hidden Figures soundtrack which she collaborated with Pharrell Williams to create.

“That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion and confusion and has deceived many men and women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ.””

Then, the offensive video of Kim Burrell’s anti-gay sermon hit YouTube on December 30. In the controversial clip, Kim can be seen and heard calling homosexuality “perverted” and an “embarrassment” as she preaches to the congregation at the Love & Liberty Fellowship Church in Texas. Check out the anti-gay religious rant below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZXu_DRQd1s

After the anti-gay sermon went viral, outraged Ellen fans quickly began urging the lesbian TV host to put the brakes on the gospel singer’s appearance. As Entertainment Weekly reports, a Change.org petition was even created in an attempt to prevent Kim Burrell from appearing on The Ellen DeGeneresShow. That petition, created by Anthony Antoine who refers to himself as an “activist” and “member of the LGBT community,” has now declared its cause a victory after collecting 6,066 signatures.

“Gospel singer Kim Burrell will NOT be appearing on Ellen DeGeneres this Thursday. Thank you Pharrell Williams, Ellen DeGeneres, Janelle Monae, Hidden Figures movie and yes, all of you who supported this effort. THIS is how we organize Our power in 2017 & beyond.”

As the controversy about her comments grew, Kim Burrell responded to critics by standing by her words. Rather than apologize to members of the LGBT community, which includes Ellen DeGeneres, Kim told the world that both she and God “hate their sin.” However, Burrell did add that she loves people dealing with the “homosexual spirit,” because God does.

“To every person that is dealing with the homosexual spirit, that has it, I love you because God loves you. But God hates the sin in you and me, anything that is against the nature of God. I’m called to do what God called me to do, and that’s it, and I do it with passion.”

Burrell posted her “apology” video on Facebook (the post has now been deleted), along with a follow-up in which she clarified that she doesn’t believe homosexual people are going to burn in hell.

“I never said LGBT. I said S-I-N.”

While Ellen DeGeneres didn’t immediately respond to the controversy and demands to drop Burrell from her show’s line-up, Pharrell Williams did, or at least he appeared to. Just one day after the anti-gay sermon went viral, he took to Twitter to take a stand against hate speech (without mentioning the name “Kim Burrell.”)

Finally, after several days of anger and increasingly heated social media debates, Ellen DeGeneres took to Twitter herself to address the controversy and her fans’ prayers. In a short, to-the-point tweet, Ellen demonstrated that she’d done precisely what her fans and LGBT rights advocates asked her to do: kick Burrell off of her show.

As Fox News reports, Ellen tweeted out the message yesterday. As of the publication of this story, it has gotten over 35,000 positive ratings on Twitter.

Of course, not everybody thinks that Kim Burrell said anything wrong or incorrect in her scathing viral anti-gay sermon. The gospel singer is getting plenty of social media support, despite the fact that Ellen DeGeneres has now banned the preacher from her popular talk show.

While it doesn’t look like Kim Burrell is going to lose many of her most loyal gospel fans in the wake of her homophobic tirade, being kicked off of The Ellen DeGeneresShow may be a bitter pill for her to swallow at this high point of her musical career.

***Update: It has just been reported by Ask Kissy that Kim Burrell is suffering from more career-related fallout; in addition to being cut from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the gospel singer’s radio show has reportedly been cut from the Texas Southern University programming lineup.***

[Featured Image by KGC-158/STAR MAX/IPx 7/10/16/AP Images]

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