Jamal Parris Speaks Out

So Fox 5 news in Atlanta caught up with one of Bishop Eddie Long’s accusers, Jamal Parris, in a parking lot in Colorado. While I think ambushing the young man was wrong, when he finally decided to talk what he had to say was heart-breaking.

From the Fox 5 News Story:

“I loved him,” Parris said. “I’m always going to have love for the things that he taught me. But how he left us hurt worse than anything I ever felt in my life.”
Parris claims in his lawsuit the father-like figure used scripture to justify sex. And he lavished money, cars, jewelry, trips in the Bishop’s private jet, even homes on the teens, sometimes with funds from the church coffers.
“You finally have a father that you’ve always wanted for and always dreamed of,” Parris said. “He would just walk away from you if you don’t give him what he wants. So you end up turning into something you never thought you would be, which is now a slave to a man that you love.”
As he claimed in his lawsuit, Jamal says the bishop began a slow sexual seduction, which became more intimate and more intense after the young boys became of legal age.
“So, while the media and the rest of the people around the city, around the country look at us like how could grown men let another man touch him, what you have to understand is this man has manipulated us since childhood,” Parris explained. “This was our father and we loved him.”
Through his attorney, Craig Gillen, Bishop Long has called the allegations in the lawsuits false.
In the end, Parris says when the bishop loses interest in sex and sets his sights on other younger men, the older boys are left behind.
“This man turned his back on us when he had no more need for us,” Parris said. “That’s not a father, that’s a predator.”
Parris says he attempted to resolve the matter privately with the bishop, but when that didn’t work, lawsuits were filed identifying the young men accusing the bishop.
“We would have to be the craziest kids in the world to want to come out and admit to another man touching on us publicly,” said Parris. “To really believe this is about money would be absolutely ludicrous.”

Yeah. So anyone who wants to continue to say “innocent until proven guilty” or “let’s just wait and see” or “these boys are just after money,” after watching and reading what Jamal Parris had to say, you’re just as much of a monster as Bishop Eddie Long.

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