Kim Burrell (Instagram)
A historically Black university in Texas has decided to stop airing Kim Burrell’s radio show after her remarks about “perverted” homosexuality continue to incite backlash.
Texas Southern University announced in a media release obtained by Deadline Friday, Jan. 6, that “Bridging The Gap” has been canceled, simply stating, “The Kim Burrell Show is no longer airing as part of KTSU Radio programming.”
The show premiered on KTSU in June 2016 and focused on Burrell sharing her views on music, life and society. It was her first turn as a radio host.
The cancellation of the program followed the gospel singer’s sermon that was posted online Saturday, Dec. 30. In it, she described homosexuality as a “sinful nature” and said it was a “perverted … spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women.”
Burrell responded to the backlash by attempting to clarify her comments in a now-deleted Facebook Live video.
“To every person that is dealing with the homosexual spirit, that has it, I love you because God loves you,” she explained. “But God hates the sin in you and me, anything that is against the nature of God.”
I never said ‘LGBT,'” Burrell added. “I said ‘sin.'”
Then, on Thursday, Jan. 5, a sermon by singer and pastor Shirley Caesar surfaced which seemed to show her proclaiming Burrell should have spoken up about homosexuality sooner.
“You should’ve said something four years ago when our President made that stuff all right,” Caesar stated in the 18-second clip.
However, the remark has since been revealed to have been taken out of context, as a full version of the sermon posted by Facebook user Frederick W. Sanders shows Caesar was not talking about homosexuality at all.
In an interview with Bishop George Bloomer, the pastor explained her intentions.
“What I was saying was, why now? Why break up your life now to be bothered with something like that,” she said of Burrell. “That was then, this is now. Let’s go forward now with our lives.”
“I know who I am and I know I would never say anything to harm anybody,” she added. “It’s time for us to put that stuff behind us and move on with our lives.”
