A conservative Tennessee pastor is making headlines after footage of a sermon in which he implied that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people should be put to death surfaced online.
As Raw Story originally reported, Brainerd Baptist Church Senior Pastor Robby Gallaty justified Christian opposition to the LGBT community in his hour-long sermon, which was broadcast on Aug. 31.
"God said that the sins of the people had infected the very land in which they live,” Gallaty says in the clip. “So what happens to people who engage in this activity, this sexual immoral activity? Go to Leviticus 20, God gives us the punishment for engaging in these sins… They must be put to death. And their blood is on their own hands.’”
"A black man can't change his race; a white man can't change his race," he continues. "A homosexual can stop engaging in homosexual acts. Sexuality is a choice, gender and race are not. It's not the same issue here."
Gallaty, of course, is not alone. In 2012, Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, N.C., condemned President Barack Obama's endorsement of marriage equality while calling for gays and lesbians to be put in an electrified pen and ultimately killed off.
While Gallaty sounds hopelessly outdated in his argument, the video is nonetheless troubling because, as Daily Beast writer Jay Michaelson noted, his "sermon in Tennessee suggests a similar pattern may now be underway among evangelical Christians."
"Many are, indeed, changing their attitudes," he wrote. "But beware the zeal of the unconverted."
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