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After 39 years in ministry, Ga. bishop comes out

Swilley urges dialogue between gays, Christians

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For Church in the Now’s Bishop Jim Swilley and Debye Swilley, the decision to divorce so Jim could live openly as a gay man is ‘a real love story.’ (Photo courtesy of CITN)

Bishop Jim Swilley founded Church in the Now, the massive, non-denominational congregation in Conyers, in 1985. But as the church grew over 25 years, and throughout his almost four decades of ministry, Swilley struggled with a secret that he hid from his congregation.

“I am approaching my 39th year in ministry — All I have ever done is preach the gospel,” Swilley told his congregation in an emotional sermon last month, noting that his parents tell stories of him preaching while still in diapers.

“There are two things in my life that are an absolute: I did not ask for either one of them, both of them were imposed upon me, I had no control over either of them,” Swilley said.

“One was the call of God in my life … the other thing, and I wouldn’t have known what to call it at the time, is my sexual orientation. I know a lot of straight people think that orientation is a choice, but I want to tell you that it definitely is not,” he said.

Swilley discounted rumors that he was cheating on his wife, who sat in the audience nodding her support, thanked his children and parents, and said that he was motivated to speak up by the recent rash of gay youth suicides, and by ongoing hate crimes targeting gay people.

“I can only hope that you hear me out and you hear me with an open mind,” Swilley said then.

The video of Swilley’s Oct. 13 coming out speech has gone viral with more than 50,000 views in three weeks. Jim Swilley, Debye Swilley and their son Judah Swilley spoke with the Georgia Voice about the experience.

GA Voice: Debye, people who watched that video really want to know if you support Jim. Can you speak to that?

Debye Swilley: I look at this as a real love story. I’ve always loved Jim and we learned to build a life around his sexual orientation. We built an incredible life together. We love each other and are best friends.

In March of 2009, it hit me that I was no longer a blessing to Jim. I was handicapping him. I was doing him a disservice by keeping him from growing because I was keeping him from being who he was. When I realized that I was hurting Jim more than helping him, that hurt me. I came to a place where I knew that I was no longer the best for him.

Jim Swilley: She came to me and said, “I think it’s time that you are able to walk in the way that you direct people. You tell people that God loves them just as they are and that God has a purpose for them just as they are and you don’t give that same break to yourself.”

I told her, “If we were going to still work together [in ministry], you realize that you’re outing me. People will look at us and wonder if we’re that fine with each other, why don’t we just stay married?”

Debye: I told Jim Earl, “I will do anything that you want for me to do. If you want me to be the crazy woman who freaked out or let people think that I had an affair, I really don’t care what anybody says about me. If you don’t ever want to come out with this, it’s your truth. I just can’t do it anymore. I will not be in agreement with us not being everything that we’re supposed to be. Just know that I will never hurt you and I will always protect you.”

Jim: The church had a lot of questions. People still saw us together and there was speculation about why we were divorcing. There was enough buzz about it that I tried to address it at our church’s 25th anniversary.  Somehow, the word got out into the community that I came out that day. We kept trying to decide what to do. Should I leave it? Should I say more? I was talking all around it.

The real thing that made me go ahead with it was that two-week period when those five or six gay teen suicides happened. I decided that I couldn’t not talk about this. I was just going to put it out there and whatever happens would happen. If I lost the ministry, I’d deal with that. I wasn’t afraid. I just knew it was right.

Voice: What has been the general response from the public and from your church membership?

Jim: In one week, I gained over 1,000 Facebook friends. I’ve heard from Hong Kong, Japan, London, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria… one story after another from people who say, “Oh my God. I feel like you totally told my story.” I’ve heard from other pastors who’ve come out or pastors who are still in the closet, afraid to come out. I’ve heard from teenagers. For every negative one that I get, there’ll be a hundred that are loving and affirming. I hear it over and over: “You saved my life.”

Voice: Judah, what have you observed about people’s reactions to your dad sharing his truth?

Judah Swilley: Thank God that most of it has been supportive. Unfortunately, we’ve heard from closed-minded religious people that see things a different way. The crazy thing is that the people who have extreme religious beliefs and they bring out different scriptures and try to pick and choose them to make their point. You can’t just pick one thing and take it out of context.

You know, Leviticus says all kinds of crazy things. …

Debye: What people might not understand is that Jim carried this fear of rejection with him that is so deep that it would come out in the way that he would minister. I always knew in my heart that if he just loved himself just the way that he was and if he embraced his humanity, the divine part would be exponential.

Voice: Bishop Swilley, what do you want to tell the gay community in Atlanta?

Jim: One of Jesus’ last words on the cross was “Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do.”

What I would to say to the gay community is that Proverbs says that life is in the power of the tongue and the only thing that I know to do is to continue to communicate. I understand why so many gay people left the church. I totally get it. I understand why so many of them don’t believe in God. I want to be somewhat of a bridge builder or repairer of the breach.

What I would say to gay Christians is to continue to dialogue if you can.

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New York

Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced

One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.

NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.

John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.

The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.

Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.

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National

Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information

Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.

“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.

 “These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.

It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”

 The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question. 

A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit. 

While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management. 

The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.

 Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.   

“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.

 “Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says. 

Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”

 Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”

Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.

 “As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from  the Washington Blade. 

“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said. 

The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”

It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”

The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society. 

The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections

Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Screen capture: YouTube)

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.

While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”

“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.

The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.

Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.

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