Kirk Cameron on Tuesday insisted that
he does not hate gay people.
Cameron, who is pitching his upcoming
documentary film on America's moral downfall, Monumental: In
Search of America's National Treasure, created a firestorm of
controversy earlier this month when he told CNN host Piers Morgan
that being gay is “unnatural” and “detrimental, and ultimately
destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization” and that
he would not be supportive if one of his six sons told him he was
gay.
Appearing Tuesday on NBC's TODAY,
Cameron, a Christian conservative and former child star of the sitcom
Growing Pains, told
host Ann Curry that he was surprised that his comments caused
controversy.
“I was surprised, frankly, that
people were surprised by the things that I've said,” Cameron
explained. “I have been consistent for 15 years as a Christian.
I'm a Bible-believing Christian. What I would have thought was more
newsworthy is if I had said something that contradicted the word of
God, if I had contradicted my faith.”
When Curry asked whether he was
“encouraging people to feel hate toward gay people, Cameron
answered: “Absolutely not.”
“I love all people, I hate no one,”
he added. “When you take a subject and reduce it to something like
a four-second soundbite and a check mark on a ballot, I think that
that's inappropriate and insensitive. … to edit it down to that, it
certainly didn't reflect my full heart on the matter.”
“Nobody should mistreat anybody. We
all have our convictions formed by different things and mine are
informed by my faith. They're formed by the word of God, and I found
that to be an anchor for me, a compass and a guide for me. When
people start bullying one another and calling each other names for
those different convictions, then I think you get into problems.”
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