Kim Burrell goes to the 2024 Black Music Honors at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on May 18, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Carol Lee Rose/Getty Images
After making a collection of homophobic statements throughout her job, scripture vocalist Kim Burrell made a main apology over the weekend break.
While approving the Aretha Franklin Icon Award at the 39th yearly Stellar Gospel Music Awards, Burrell supplied an apology to the LGBTQ area for the “hurtful” remarks she’s transformed the years.
“I have, over the course of time and with much soul-searching, come to fully understand the reach and impact of my voice beyond Gospel music,” the vocalist clarified. “There is such a care to take when you realize you’re not just preaching to the choir anymore. You’re preaching to the ones who wanted to be in the choir and were too scared to come because they didn’t understand our language. … [I] understand that some of my past words, comments, preaching have been received by the LGBTQ+ community as negative and hurtful. There’s nothing more hurtful than to think — to imagine — that you’ve said something in the name of God, and it hurt somebody.”
The vocalist proceeded, asserting that her use “church lingo” might have added to her oblivious remarks. “We have a church jargon that everybody doesn’t get. And sometimes you have to say it for the people in the back. And for that, I want to apologize to the LGBTQ community. Let’s give them a great big round of applause,” she stated to the target market. “We want them to have strength and to sincerely know that we must all do the work to embrace all of God’s people. Tonight, I hope this award and this moment can be the beginning of bridge-building and listening to each other as we follow peace with all men and develop the character of God, which requires seeing God.”
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In a now-infamous lecture in 2017, Burrell called LGBTQ+ individuals “perverted” and informed those dealing with a “homosexual spirit” that “I love you and God loves you but God hates the sin in you and me.” As an outcome of Burrell’s lecture, Ellen DeGeneres canceled the vocalist’s look on her talk program, stating at the time, “There’s no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017.”
In reaction, Darian Aaron, the supervisor of regional information: UNITED STATE South for LGBTQ+ campaigning for company GLAAD, released a declaration calling Burrell’s apology just “a first step” towards “accountability and healing” for the area.
“Black LGBTQ people who remain in traditional faith communities are very familiar with the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric Burrell and others have espoused throughout her career,” he composed. “We are well-versed in the ‘lingo and jargon’ of Black church culture and a gospel music industry that benefits from our gifts but demands us to be silent about our truth. … Burrell’s speech is evidence of a tipping point where Burrell, the Black church, and the gospel music industry can recognize and accept us all as people of faith and as worthy of Black liberation as anyone else.”
Watch a clip of Burrell’s apology listed below, and check out the whole of GLAAD’s reaction ontheir website
Kim Burrell “apologized” to the LGBT+ area throughout her Stellar Awards approval speech. pic.twitter.com/tF1wzoa0wX
— Smiles in Homosexual Spirit (@research_jpg)July 22, 2024
