Bad Christians: A church congregation in Oklahoma violently attacked and held hostage a same-sex couple in a failed attempt to “pray the gay away.”

News 9 reports:

A same-sex couple said they were attacked at a Blackwell church and one was held down, while church goers tried to, quote, “pray the gay away.” Gary Gardner of Blackwell said he and his boyfriend, Sean Cormie, were invited to The First Assembly of God Church by Cormie’s family. Gardner said everything started okay…

LGBTQ News reports:

A gay couple says that they were attacked by a church’s congregation in attempt to convert them to heterosexuality. Sean Cormie, 23, recently came out to his family in Blackwell, Oklahoma. Since then, his family has been trying to get him to go to church with them and to bring along his boyfriend, Gary Gardner. On September 8, they finally went to The First Assembly of God Church with Cormie’s family. He said that he had already gone to that church’s service several times.

Cormie told Oklahoma News 4:

I wanted to go to church to make my mom proud and make her happy.

Gardner narrates what happened at the church service:

A lot of Sean’s family came over and started praying on us, and church members started praying on us and started getting louder and louder and louder.

Cormie notes the pastor led the kidnapping and assault by declaring:

It’s a sin, it’s an abomination, you need to realize, wake up, and see it for a sin.

Cormie reports he was beaten and punched in the face as the congregation swarmed him in their feverish and misguided attempt to pray away the gay. Cormie said:

They hold me down, pin me down, and I’m crying… and they keep speaking in tongues, praying over me. I was just crying ‘mercy, mercy.’

Gardner notes:

(They) sort of picked him up and body slammed him over and started praying on him, and when they were doing that, Sean ended up with marks on his arms a black eye and sort of blacked out.

Gardner said:

We want the church shut down. If they’re going to treat people like that, they don’t need to be open.

In an attempt at damage control the church released a statement saying:

This began as a family matter that escalated. Our church would never condone restraint of any person unless they were engaged in violent activity. There is much more to this incident, and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement to hopefully bring all of the facts to light as a rush to judgment is not in anyone’s best interest.

According to reports, local police have been contacted but they are not commenting on the investigation.

Bottom line: Members of The First Assembly of God Church in Blackwell, Oklahoma violently assaulted and held hostage a same-sex couple in a failed and deeply misguided attempt to “pray the gay away.”