Less than a month after being criticized by pro-gay activist for previously expressing the belief that gays and lesbians can leave a “homosexual lifestyle,” gospel artist Kirk Franklin is facing criticism from some christian fans for remarks he made during a recent radio interview in which he was asked about his thoughts on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
“A lot of people in the church are in conflict with this. How do you feel about same-sex marriage?” asked Sway Calloway during his SiriusXM program “Sway in the Morning,” in which the DJ commented on changes the U.S. has seen in regard to marriage being redefined in 12 states, plus Washington, D.C., to include same-sex couples.
“First of all, how I feel about any topic, I think, is going to be really minute. I think that’s been the big problem, is that I think that as Christians, as the church, we’ve come across like the police,” said Franklin, standing at the mic while Sway and co-host Heather B looked on.
“Whatever my lens is, it’s always going to be trying my best to see something through what I believe is going to be God’s word, and not God’s word in the essence of dogma or in the essence of religion, or to be right and to make other people wrong,” he added. “I first would probably always want to say I’m very sorry for all of the ugly and all of the painful things that people have even heard from church people, because things can come from a very homophobic lens. Sometimes it feels very homophobic when people try to make their stance and their beliefs, and there’s been some very painful, ugly things that have been said … that not have always been in the essence of a heart for Christ.
“How I would always sum it up whether you’re talking about any issue that people want to know what does God’s word say about it, this is the one that I always want to stand on in the Book of Romans. It says (in chapter three), ‘For there is none righteous, (no) not one.’ So there is not one on the planet that is perfect before God’s eyes. Then the next verse says, ‘For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’ That’s me, that’s you, that’s anybody walking on this planet, that God sees us all as broken people that need His love and His grace.”
Franklin, 43, went on to add that, “if we were not sinners, Jesus would not have had to come. If he didn’t see us as sinners, he could have loved us without dying for us. He died for our sins. So if we’re all sinners, that means everybody’s in the pot together needing the same love, the same grace and the same forgiveness.”
