Wake up Black people! Lock your windows and doors! Lesbians are coming -- and they’re taking over the Black community!

You haven’t heard? Apparently you missed Rev. Willie Wilson’s recent sermon at Union Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

I wish this were a joke. In fact, I wish it were even funny. But Rev. Wilson -- who is, ironically, the executive director of the Millions More Movement march -- actually said in a July 3 sermon, entitled “You’ve Got to Fight to be Free” and first reported by the Washington Blade on July 15, that “lesbianism is about to take over the community.”

Wilson took the hot mess that was his sermon and sent it further down the gutter. He went on to say “women falling down on another woman, strapping yourself up with something, it ain’t real. That thing ain’t got no feeling in it. It ain’t natural. Anytime somebody got to slap some grease on your behind and stick something in you, it’s something wrong with that. Your butt ain’t made for that. No wonder your behind is bleeding…The Bible says God made them male and female.”

Despite outcry from Black LGBT leaders and local elected officials, Wilson has refused to apologize for the outburst. Black LGBT activists planning to participate in the October Millions More march say their efforts have been ignored by march organizers for six months now.

It’s hard to know where to even begin in considering Wilson's “sermon.” But I am at the least surprised by his detailed familiarity with homosexual sex acts — I’d certainly like to see the history on his web browser.

What is more shocking than his window-view into the sex lives of gay men and lesbians, of course, is the recklessness of this speech, particularly for someone leading a high-profile community-mobilization march. Today, even the most raging homophobes use sophisticated, sound bite-friendly language like “protecting the sanctity of marriage” or the “Contract with Black America on Moral Values.” Wilson’s statements have the subtlety of government-sponsored films on the dangers of homosexuality from the 1950’s.

This isn’t the 1950’s, but the fact that Wilson’s congregation is heard shouting its approval throughout the sermon is proof that his thoughts on homosexuality still have great currency in the Black community in 2005.

While Wilson may not consider himself a part of the white-led religious right, his homophobia certainly makes him their accidental ally. In 2004, an unprecedented number of Black ministers (well-funded by religious right think-tanks) closely aligned themselves with the sorts of individuals and organizations that have long worked diligently against Black political interests, all in the name of demonizing LGBT people — I need not remind you of Chicago’s Rev. Gregory Daniels, who boldly declared, “If the KKK was opposing same-sex marriage, Rev. Daniels would ride with them.”

What do statements like Daniels’ and Wilson’s mean for the daily lives of LGBT people in the Black community? For starters, they both foster and encourage attitudes that literally put our lives at risk.

The hate speech coming from our churches has had a dangerously paralyzing influence over our community’s response to the AIDS epidemic. Pastors like Wilson exploit and amplify the same bitter divisions within Black America that have too often stood in the way of communal self-preservation. Moreover, Wilson and his ilk also drive too many Black gay and bisexual men into an unhealthy, schizophrenic existence.

“I don’t think we’re really going to get a hold of HIV until we can get real about it and not be so in denial about who folks really are,” says Washington, D.C.’s Rev. Alvin O. Jackson, in a recent conversation with BlackAIDS.org. Jackson says pulpit-driven homophobia not only slows our response to HIV, but also puts people at risk for contracting it because “people are pushed even further into the margins and into all kinds of strange ways of dealing with their sexuality. If we could let people integrate [their sexuality into their lives] and just be a part of the community and be who they are, it would work much better. So I do think we contribute to [the epidemic] in our denial of who folks are.”