Queerty
May 18, 2019
Last week, Jerry Falwell Jr. made national headlines when it was reported that Michael Cohen allegedly helped stop the release of x-rated photos of the antigay activist shortly before he endorsed Trump for president in 2016.
According to Reuters, Falwell contacted Cohen in 2015 seeking assistance regarding an “embarrassing personal matter” involving him, his wife, and their 20-something pool boy, er, pool attendant from Miami.
Related: Jerry Falwell Jr.’s alleged x-rated photos could get him fired from his own university
Rumor had it, the pool boy possessed dirty pictures of Falwell and was using them to blackmail the evangelical leader to the tune of $1.8 million. Falwell denied any such photos existed, and the pool boy denied blackmailing him, but neither denied the $1.8 million payment, which remains unexplained.
Of course, Falwell is hardly the first antigay church leader to find himself embroiled in a bizarre sex scandal, alleged or confirmed.
Here are six other antigay church leaders who were recently exposed for hypocrisy…
Ernest Angley
The 97-year-old former leader of the Grace Cathedral Church in Akron, Ohio, who made his career out of preaching homophobia and scamming people with dementia out of their life savings, had a scandalous decades-old recording of himself leaked to the media earlier this year.
In the recording, which was made in 1996, Angley is heard admitting to getting naked and masturbating with an unnamed man in his bed, but he insists the encounter wasn’t gay because “I didn’t make him cum.”
“I didn’t ejaculate him,” Angley says. “I didn’t make him cum. … [And] he didn’t make me cum. No, he didn’t!”
Matthew Dennis Patterson
Perv pastor
The 45-year-old pastor of Nolensville Road Baptist Church in Nolensville, Tennessee and self-proclaimed “vocal opponent” of LGBTQ rights was ousted from his post in April 2018 after congregation members began complaining about his requests to “engage in strange activities” with their children.
Patterson was accused of asking numerous boys to strip down to their underpants and sit on his face over the course of 20 years. Police didn’t say how old the children were at the time of the alleged abuse; however, Patterson was indicted on eight counts of aggravated sexual battery with each count being linked to a different child.
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