Grant Storms: Anti-Gay Pastor Arrested for Masturbating in Front of Children

A Christian fundamentalist pastor who has taken especially strong positions against the gay community has been arrested for masturbating in a public park in front of young children. The Rev. Grant Storms of New Orleans is known for campaigning against the Gay Southern Decadence Festival in New Orleans. The pastor has been booked for obscenity by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.

Storms claims that he was just having lunch in Lafreniere Park in his van when he decided to relieve himself in a bottle instead of going to the bathroom. However, two women claim that they saw Storms through the open windows of his van and that he was masturbating while watching young children. The ladies got the attention of an officer, who then had Storms arrested. His bail was set at $5,000, but he was released due to jail overcrowding.

In an effort to stop Southern Decadence, Pastor Storms actually videotaped public sex acts and showed them to legislators. "There's no economic gain that justifies an orgy in the streets," Storms said. "That's all it is -- a three-day orgy in the streets."

In his fervent push against gay rights, Pastor Storms has been accused of advocating violence against the homosexual community. Storms gave a 2003 speech to Wisconsin Christians United in which he allegedly simulated the murder of gay people. In a recording of his speech, Storms made sounds like gunfire, as if to shoot homosexuals. "God has delivered them into our hands. Boom boom boom ... there's twenty! Ca-ching! Glory, glory to god," he said.

The Grant Storms story is honestly nothing new. The legend of the hypocritical pastor is old news by now, as we've all come to see pastors across the country who seek to condemn the same temptations that exist within the depths of their very own souls. I don't doubt that Pastor Grant really does have a problem with homosexuality, in large part because this may represent the part of himself that he hates the most.

What must also be made clear, however, is that homosexuality should not be implied to be directly connected to pedophilia. The latter is a serious and dangerous crime that affects far too many children, and we cannot lay the burden of child molestation on the back of the gay community. We should also know that Pastor Grant is innocent until proven guilty, for right now, it's his word against the witnesses in this crime.

One thing to walk away with after seeing this case (as well as many others we've written about on BV regarding pastors behaving badly) is that there may come a time when the black community will have to seriously deal with the homophobia within our churches. By working overtime to chastise those who are different, we are not only in violation of the religious principles we profess to believe, we are also pushing otherwise productive, law-abiding citizens deeper into an underworld of dangerous sexual deviance. While I don't think that the HIV epidemic is driven entirely by the brothers on the downlow, I would expect that there would be less men hiding their true sexual orientation if we didn't make it so difficult for them to be honest.