When I was an avid watcher of Christian TV, the late Eddie Long was my favorite MEGA PREACHER for lots of reasons. First of all, I liked his boldness, the fact that he did not lose his blackness but saw himself as a leader of his inner city community, and I loved his masculinity as I was tired of apparently neutered preachers. So when I turned away from charismatic teachings, Eddie was one of the few that I missed.

Nevertheless, I was not shocked by his apparent down-low gay status— I suppose because I was already accustomed to the normalized DL trend, prevalent in the African American denominations  for quite a few decades.  In fact, I became privy to the DL ministerial trend once ordained  by a black traditional denomination  where I preached and pastored for 25 years.  My conservative estimate is that  at least 50% of the preachers were down low.

So…