Published on February 23rd, 2012 | by Steven Hodson
0Florida church bars children because of their sex offender preacher
Quick, where’s the nearest wall because this is just so inanely stupid I can’t believe it. I mean what church in their right mind would employ, or take on as a volunteer, a convicted child molester as their new pastor.
Except that is exactly what has happened in Jacksonville at the Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist church who decided that it would be just fine to hire Darrell Gilyard after he had been convicted and jailed for three years for abusing a 15-year-old girl at another church in 2009. Not to mention as well that part of the terms of his early release was that he was not to be allowed any kind of contact with minor children.
Parishioners claim security guards hired by the church have begun refusing admission to families with children, including a woman who tried to attend on Sunday with a two-year-old boy.
Instead, they say, children are directed to remain “off site” while Gilyard is preaching, and they accuse the church of dismantling its playground to keep them away.
Since Gilyard was hired last month, soon after his December release from jail, the church in Northside, one of Jacksonville’s poorest, mostly black neighbourhoods, has become the scene of angry exchanges between protesters and his supporters.
via Guardian
Other pastors in the area have condemn Deacon Paul S Newman, chairman of the church ministry, for hiring Gilyard ion the first place and say that the man has no place near women or children, especially considering his past problems prior to the 2009 incident.¸