Christian conservatives have spoken out against New York City Mayor Eric Adam’s dismissal of one of his education advisors, who also serves as a pastor, after The New York Daily News reported on some of her past writings on sexuality and gender.
Last week, Adams announced nine picks to the city’s Panel for Education Policy, which “replaced the former Board of Education in 2022 and is part of the governance structure responsible for the city’s public schools.”
Initially, the list of appointments included Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne, the leader of Staten Island’s Reach Out and Touch Ministries.
In the initial announcement, the mayor’s office touted Barrett-Layne as a seasoned minister who “spends her time inspiring people with her speaking and teaching in Bible studies.”
After Adams announced Barrett-Layne’s appointment to the panel, The New York Daily News published an article highlighting what it characterized as “anti-gay” remarks from her past.
Specifically, the tabloid publication took issue with Barrett-Layne’s 2013 book Challenging Your Disappointments, which listed homosexuality alongside several other sins, including “fornication, adultery, pedophilia, stealing, lying, envy, [and] covetousness.”
In the book, Barrett-Layne contended that incarcerated young people “live in the grip of fornicating homosexual lifestyles with the risk of being infected with the AIDS virus and other sexually transmitted diseases.”
In a 2004 book titled When Your Mess Becomes the Message, the pastor recalled how her 3-year-old daughter determined that “she was a boy” after overhearing her mother provide counsel to a lesbian. After her daughter’s declaration, Barrett-Layne said she and her husband “began to militantly and violently pray for, with and over our daughter” and prayed “against every spirit that was not of God, including the spirit of homosexuality.”
She wrote that the time when her daughter experienced gender confusion was “one of the most frightening experiences I had with my little girl.”
Story continues at: Mayor Adams fires Christians
