Oklahoma minister arrested in sex sting

Posted: 1/20/06

Oklahoma minister arrested in sex sting

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

OKLAHOMA CITY (ABP)–A Southern Baptist Convention leader was arrested in Oklahoma City for offering to have sex with a male undercover police officer.

Police arrested Lonnie Latham, pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church in Tulsa, Okla., on a charge of offering to engage in a lewd act. He resigned from the Tulsa church Jan. 5.

He also reportedly resigned from the SBC Executive Committee and from his elected position with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.

Police officials said they had received several complaints about male prostitutes in the neighborhood around the Habana Inn, a hotel that advertises itself as “the Southwest's largest gay resort,” in “the heart of Oklahoma City's gay district.”

A plainclothes officer investigating the complaints told police officials that, late on the evening of Jan. 3, Latham approached him at a nearby location and invited him back to another hotel near the Oklahoma Baptist Building for oral sex. The pastor did not offer to exchange money for the act and thus was arrested on the lewdness charge rather than solicitation, police reported.

The Oklahoma County district attorney's office has agreed to prosecute Latham, police spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Becker said.

Latham was released from the Oklahoma County Jail on $500 bail Jan. 4. He did not return a phone message left at his home requesting an interview. However, multiple media outlets quoted Latham as saying, as he exited the jail, that he had been “set up” and that he had simply been ministering to people in the area when he was arrested.

South Tulsa Baptist Church posted a statement on its website that said Latham had resigned as pastor and will not return to the church in any staff capacity.

The statement also noted the church “has a long history of sharing Christ's message of love and redemption to people from all walks of life,” and “that same spirit of love will be one that we continue to show Dr. Latham and his family.”

The Southern Baptist Conven-tion and its leaders have, in recent years, regularly spoken out in opposition to homosexuality as an orientation, as well as against legalizing same-sex marriage and other gay civil rights.

Latham publicly supported the SBC effort to convince gays to “accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their sinful, destructive lifestyle.” Latham also has served as an officer of the conservative Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, which repeatedly has passed resolutions opposing homosexuality and gay rights.