FIRST ON FOX: Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris visited a controversial pastor’s megachurch in a key state last Sunday, where she thanked him for his “leadership” and said she was honored to be there to “celebrate” what he did. “accomplished.”
Harris attended a church service at Georgia-based New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, which is under the pastoral leadership of senior pastor Jamal H. Bryant. The longtime pastor has repeatedly praised anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and said gay people should feel “uncomfortable” in their “sin.”
Bryant, who introduced Harris as an “American hero” and a “voice of the future,” told the congregation that their unborn grandchildren would one day ask where they were on church service day and called on them to “ make some noise” for their “intrepid leader”.
“Pastor Bryant, I thank you for your leadership,” Harris said during a roughly 20-minute speech to the New Birth congregation. “You and I discussed how we first met almost 20 years ago at a meeting of the country’s rising stars, and we had conversations back then about how we were thinking about our role and our responsibility to our country and our responsibility and our duty as leaders.”
BIDEN OFFICIAL POSE FOR PHOTO WITH ONE OF FARRAKHAN’S “TOP SOLDIERS” AT DNC
Vice President Harris and Pastor Bryant at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church on October 20, 2024. (YouTube screenshot)
“It’s so good to be with you this morning to celebrate what you have accomplished with this extraordinary congregation,” she added.
Bryant, who donated $500 to the Harris campaign a week after President Biden announced he was not running for re-election, has been a strong supporter of Harris and said earlier this summer that he and other black leaders “mobilized an army” in support of his campaign.
“It was a sister who raised you, it was a sister who taught you to read. It takes a real man to support a woman,” Bryant said during his sermon. He added: “You were born for such a time as this,” referring to Harris.
Despite Bryant’s praise of Harris and strengthening her candidacy, his past controversial comments could come back to haunt Harris’ campaign.
He has long praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has espoused anti-Semitic rhetoric dating back decades, including calling Jews “evil” and comparing them to termites as “anti -termites”. Bryant interviewed the Nation of Islam leader in 2015 and said he was “one of the greatest leaders of our people.”
“We welcome to Word Network, and to the world, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan! We are honored to welcome you, sir,” Bryant said while introducing him. “I am so grateful to be able to make a mark in history that I lived in the same chasm of time as one of the greatest leaders of our people.”
In a 2019 tweet, Bryant said that he was “honored” to be in Farrakhan’s presence. His Twitter page has dozens of other tweets linked to Farrakhan.
BIDEN’S TOP ADVISOR HAS BEEN EMPLOYED FOR DECADES IN A CHURCH THAT HAS GAVE A PLATFORM TO ANTISEMITES: “DEVIL BY NATURE”
Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan delivers a speech and speaks about U.S. President Donald Trump at the Watergate Hotel November 16, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Bryant has also been critical of the gay community, telling a congregation at the Baltimore Empowerment Temple in 2012 that “homosexuality is not the only sin, but it is a sin”, while adding that it is their “responsibility » to make homosexuals and other sinners “uncomfortable in [their] fishing.”
He then attacked former President Obama for supporting same-sex marriage and failing to warn black pastors, making them feel blindsided and betrayed. He told the gathering that Obama was “black and wrong” and “black and out of order.”
Harris is a longtime supporter of gay rights and her campaign website says she will “always defend the freedom to love openly and proudly the one you love.”
“In 2004, she performed some of the nation’s first same-sex marriages, and as attorney general, she refused to defend California’s referendum on marriage equality,” her campaign website continues. “As president, she will fight to pass the Equality Act to enshrine into law anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ Americans in health care, housing, education and more .”
During Harris’ remarks at Bryant’s church, she also paid tribute to her controversial hometown pastor and longtime mentor Rev. Amos Brown, who was present at the church service, calling him “a source of comfort and of comfort to me for so many years” and praising his “wisdom”.
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Vice President Harris’ longtime mentor and pastor, Amos Brown, once blamed the United States for the September 11 attacks. (Fox News)
Brown, who has faced backlash for past comments including accusing the United States of being responsible for the 9/11 attacks and repeatedly defending Obama’s controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright, also spoke out a speech during the religious service.
At one point during his prayer, Brown called on God to “speak to every black man and let him know that he spits on their graves when he refuses to vote.” Speak to every black man so that he knows that we must not trample on the graves of those who gave their lives for the right to vote. »
“Thank you, oh God, for this day when we pray for our member and your servant, Kamala Harris. Oh God, let her know that she is moving in this nation. You will guide her. You will protect her, and she will be able to say, ‘I will make the darkness shine before you, and what is wrong I know you will make right before me, and I will fight all my battles before you.'”
Fox News Digital reached out to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response.
