I'm disgusted. Actually, no, I'm a lot more than disgusted, but to my knowledge, no word in the English language describes the level of repulsion I'm feeling after listening to this clip.
Sean Harris, the Senior Pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, has some words of advice for parents of possibly LGBT children: Smack them around. Beat the gay out of them. Or, in his precise words, "Give 'em a good punch!"
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I can't embed the video here, but to watch the video, click here to see it on Good As You. Because, as disgusting as the transcript I'm about to share is, you can't get the full effect of this guy's vitriol and hate without listening to the venom coming out of his mouth.
Here's the full video clip. H/T to Christian Dem in NC for finding it. The relevant portion starts at 45 minutes and 46 seconds. I can't figure out how to get the embedded video to start at that point...if anybody can help me, post in the comments.
Here's the transcript of the video, courtesy of Good As You:
So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,” you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.
Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting too Butch you reign her in. And you say, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.”
You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?”
Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that.
Because Jesus commanded parents to commit violence against their LGBT children. Or something like that. Praise! Glory!
This same pastor, who is an advocate for Amendment One (shocking, I know!), said that marriage equality will cause Muslims to "take over us" and that gays are "not good for America."
But the child abuse advocacy is in a whole different ballpark. What an absolutely vile, repulsive man. What makes it worse is that you know somebody in listening range of Harris is going to act on these words.
As far as I'm concerned, Harris has blood on his hands. It is exactly this kind of mentality that drives LGBT children to suicide.
UPDATE: Our loving pastor Harris has responded (H/T to kerplunk). He's claiming that he's being taken "out of context." Really? The "context" is in the video clip above--judge for yourself!