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I spoke, personally, to a friend here in Atlanta that used to attend New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and grew up with Eddie Long in Baltimore, Maryland. He told that the inner circle of Long's entourage has always known about his passion and desire for young boys. One of the accusers was involved in a break in at the church last year. One of the things stolen was the Bishop's Iphone. The young man knew that the phone was the smoking gun because of the incriminating numbers and messages it carried. New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, with it's 30,000 members, has the largest African American congregation in the southeast region of the United States. I'm just not surprised. Don't ask me why, I'm just not. ___________________________________________________________ (Sept. 22) — A third lawsuit has been filed accusing Bishop Eddie Long of coercing young men in his Atlanta megachurch into having sex in exchange for cash and cars. The suit was filed today in DeKalb County Superior Court, in Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Earlier today, a spokesman for the pastor said the two other young men who have filed lawsuits against Long are out to stake their claim on his fortune and called the allegations baseless. The allegations against the leader of a 25,000-plus-member church are particularly explosive because of Long's outspoken views on homosexuality. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church leader “one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement” and noted that he has referred to homosexuality and lesbianism as “spiritual abortions.” In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in DeKalb County, Ga., the two men accuse Long of exploiting his influence to coerce the then-teenagers into sexual relationships with him for years. Johnny Nunez, Wire Image Two men have filed a lawsuit alleging Bishop Eddie Long, here in 2007, coerced them into sexual relationships when they were teenagers. The lawsuit says Long, 57, has a long pattern of “singling out a select group of young male church members” and using his influence to engage in “sexual acts and relationships for his own personal sexual gratification.” The suit says the pastor — leader of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in the Atlanta suburb of Lithonia — referred to the teenagers as “spiritual sons” and instructed them to follow their “master.” In exchange, they claim, Long introduced them to celebrities like film director Tyler Perry, according to The New York Times. Art Franklin told CNN the claims are nothing more than “a case of retaliation and a shakedown for money by men with some serious credibility issues” and are “definitely without merit.” Franklin noted that one of the accusers was arrested earlier this year and charged with breaking into the church's offices and stealing an iPad and an iPhone. The attorney for the men, Brenda Joy Bernstein, says the June 23 break-in was committed out of anger, when one of the plaintiffs discovered that Long had similar relationships with other young men in the congregation. “He lashed out,” Bernstein told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But if it weren't for that act, we wouldn't know about this. He talked to his friends and learned Long had other 'spiritual sons.'” But not all of the church's members see it that way. Samuel Midgette, 40, said he doesn't believe the allegations, in part because of often Long speaks about his wife in glowing terms. “A man who talks about his wife as much as he do…I can't see it. Unless I'm blind,” Midgette told AOL News today in a phone interview. He said the men making the claims are likely after Long's money. “People don't believe this,” he said. “I think this is all about money.” The lawsuit charges that the abuse began when one of the men was 16. According to the suit, Long put the teenager on the church's payroll, bought him a Chevy Malibu and took him on trips to Turks and Caicos, New York and New Zealand. In New Zealand, Long “regularly engaged in sexual touching and sexual acts” with the teenager, the lawsuit says. Long “categorically denies the allegations,” his attorney, Craig Gillen, told The Associated Press. “We find it unfortunate that these two young men would take this course of action.” Gillen did not immediately return a call to AOL News. Bernstein says church officials knew about the abuse and failed to stop it. “They would do everything to protect the most powerful church in the Southeast,” she told the Times. Long's church hosts a program titled “Out of the Wilderness” that claims to help cure its participants of homosexuality. In 2006, when the family of Martin Luther King Jr. chose New Birth Missionary Baptist Church as the location for Coretta Scott King's funeral, civil rights leader Julian Bond refused to attend. Bond said King's widow supported gay rights and never would have wanted to be in the presence of Long. “I knew her attitude toward gay and lesbian rights. And I just couldn't imagine that she'd want to be in that church with a minister who was a raving homophobe,” Bond told told AOL's Black Voices in 2006. “And I couldn't see myself in my church either.” added by: keithponder