Special Report: The Worst Homophobic Churches in America
Upper Room Church of God in Christ
Raleigh, North Carolina
Patrick Wooden, senior pastor
In early 2012, Pastor Patrick Wooden stood on the front lines aiming to sabotage a bill that would allow gay marriage in the state of North Carolina. Later that year, North Carolina would become the center stage for the Democratic National Convention. Wooten’s prayers were answered when a large amount of conservatives cautiously voted to ban gay marriage and not for human equality (they won with 61 percent of the vote, with 39 percent disapproving). As the pastor of Upper Room Church of God in Christ, just one of the many churches inside a Pentecostal-structured denomination which reporters have called “rabidly anti-gay” on a normal basis, Wooten has gone on the record to make some of the most shocking statements aimed at ruffling the feathers of the gay community, even detailing the practices of anal sex before a G-rated Sunday morning service. In one very graphic interview, he’d said most gay men, when they reach later life, will be in diapers and using a “butt plug” to supposedly stop uncontrollable bowels, caused by damage from anal sex. On another occasion, he said that many gay men were going to the emergency room to have various objects removed from their anuses, including cell phones and baseball bats. He must not be aware that straight people have anal sex as well. But that’s really all beside the point. Since when did Pastor Wooden reincarnate into Dr. Ruth?
The Huffington Post profiled the controversial preacher in this report.
