Pastor James David Manning of the Atlah
Worldwide Church in Harlem, New York has defended his claim that
Starbucks is flavoring drinks with the semen of gay men.
While Manning got the idea from a story
fabricated by the fake news site Huzlers.com, he has gone on to twist
the story beyond recognition in a series of videos posted online,
where he vowed that the satirical site's story is “the absolute
truth.”
In one video, he claimed that he
suspected Starbucks is getting the semen “from sodomites.”
“Somebody has discovered that semen,
like cord blood, … flavors up the coffee,” he said. “And it
makes you think that you're having a good time drinking that cup of
latte with the semen in it.”
“I'm not making this up!” Manning
screamed.
In a separate video, Manning described
the semen as having a “synthetic quality” and warned women to
avoid drinking Starbucks coffee because they might become pregnant.
“And
if you're drinking Starbucks, watch out if you're a woman, you might
just get pregnant by drinking Starbucks, because it's got some pretty
potent semen in that drink,” Manning
said. “And you will go home and tell your husband you're
pregnant. He said, 'but we haven't had sexual intercourse in years.
Where did you get pregnant? Is it an immaculate conception?' No! It
was one of Starbucks' lattes that impregnated you.”
In a recent The Young Turks
appearance, Manning doubled down on his claims against Starbucks and
also defended posting “Jesus would stone homos” on his church
sign last year.
(Related: Lesbian
asks anti-gay church to stone her.)
Co-host Cenk Uygur asked, “[D]o you
agree with the Taliban and ISIS when they stone people to death for
things that are in their Scripture, including being gay?”
“Yes, I agree with them,” Manning
answered.
Uygur found it curious that Manning
described drinking semen as “having a good time.”
“A number of people think that semen
tastes good,” Manning responded. “A number of people think that
drinking semen is a good idea.”
“No, I don't think that myself
personally. I'm just giving you the references of what other people
say. You've got literally millions of people around the world that
really think that the taste of semen has quite a flavor, and they
seek it in the midst of other kinds of activities.”
When Uygur asked whether Manning had
been tempted by homosexuality, he answered “absolutely,” then
added, “I didn't yield to temptation, by the way.”