A Staten Island pope who once equated homosexuality and femininity was removed from Mayor Adams’ education policy committee within hours after being hired on Tuesday after the Daily News revealed her anti-gay record.
Rev. Kathlyn Barrett-Layne, head of the Ministries of Communication and Touch at Staten Island, announced Tuesday afternoon that one of Adams’ nine-member nominees for the Education Policy Committee, which serves as the city ‘s Department of Education’ board of trustees.
In a press release, Adams’ office described Barrett-Layne as an experienced minister who “spends her time encouraging people by speaking and teaching the Bible.”
But less than six hours later – after The News published an online story detailing its history of anti-gay remarks – Adams spokeswoman Amaris Cockfield said Barrett-Layne would not join the administration after all.
“I was not aware of these documents and we asked her to resign,” Cockfield said in an email.
Barrett-Layne could not be reached for comment after she suddenly fainted.
Kathlyn Barrett-Layne (Kevin Coughlin)
Barrett-Layne has presented her anti-LGBTQ views in several books.
In a 2013 book entitled “Discussing Your Depression,” Barrett-Layne set out the same-sex relationship as “sin” as a child and other sins by talking about the “trials” facing Christian leaders and their supporters.
“Leaders are struggling with the same drug addiction, alcohol, homosexuality, adultery, fornication, disobedience, theft, lying, envy, greed, and every other crime the organization fights,” she wrote.
In the same book, Barrett-Layne raises concerns about homosexuality in detainees. “They live in a sedentary lifestyle,” she wrote.
The collapse of Barrett-Layne came at the heels of Adams pushing back the hiring of three other priests with dates of anti-gay speech. The three clerics remain in office, including former councilor Fernando Cabrera, who was elected Adams’ chief adviser despite previous praise for Uganda’s anti-gay government.
In another book from 2004 entitled “When Your Sadness Becomes a Message,” Barrett-Layne recalled that her 3-year-old daughter told her “she was a boy” after attending a counseling session. Barrett-Layne gave in to a lesbian woman.
Barrett-Layne writes that she and her husband “began to pray fervently and fervently, for our daughter.”
“We prayed for everyone who is not God, including the homosexual spirit,” she wrote. “At the end of the prayer, my daughter asked me if she was a girl. When I said yes, she happily started singing and was happy to be the little girl of mom and dad. To tell you this was one of the scariest experiences I have ever had with my little girl is something that can be underestimated. “
New York Mayor Eric Adams (Ed Reed / Mayor’s Photo Office)
Allen Roskoff, a longtime LGBTQ activist who has known Adams for many years, said he was disappointed by Barrett-Layne’s hiring and sent a text message to the mayor a few hours before he was fired.
Roskoff said he was pleased with Adams’ immediate return, but called it “just a partial victory.”
“Instead she needs to be someone from the LGBTQ community,” Roskoff said. “We are half there.”
Before withdrawing from the Barrett-Layne appointment, former Queen Danny Dromm said her staff would be particularly ugly because members of the education policy board were commenting on public school curricula.
“That the mayor has nominated a gay man for a group that will have a direct impact on LGBTQIA + students and staff, is unbelievable,” said Dromm, a gay man who used to be the chairman of the Council’s Education Committee. “She has to go.”
