An Arizona pastor best known for
calling on the government to execute gays told his congregation this
week to pray against Caitlyn Jenner.
Olympian and reality star Bruce Jenner
came out as a transgender woman in an interview with Diane Sawyer
broadcast in April. Caitlyn Jenner debuted earlier this month to
much fanfare on the cover of Vanity Fair.
(Related: Caitlyn
Jenner, formerly Bruce: Vanity
Fair
cover frees me.)
In a sermon available on
YouTube, Steven Anderson, pastor at Faithful Word Baptist Church
in Tempe, Arizona, condemned Vanity Fair's cover image of
Jenner shot by Annie Leibovitz, calling it a “filthy, sodomite
picture.”
“And this person is just the
evangelist of sodomy and filth to the world,” Anderson said. “And
then people are like, 'Oh, we need to pray that he finds Jesus.' I'm
going to pray that he dies and goes to hell, are you serious?”
“I hate him with a perfect hatred. I
have no love, no love for this Bruce freak. I hope he dies today. I
hope he dies and goes to hell. He's disgusting. He's filthy. He's
reprobate.”
“Nobody who defends that freak is
welcome in this church,” he said.
Anderson added that he hopes that God
rips out Jenner's heart: “I pray that his heart would explode right
now.”
Anderson made headlines last year when
he told his congregation that an AIDS-free world is possible by
Christmas. “[I]f you execute the homos like God recommends, you
wouldn't have all this AIDS running rampant,” he said.
He later added that it's the
government's job to execute criminals. “It's the job of the
government to execute killers, murderers and also homosexuals,
according to the Bible,” he said during a live interview with
Spanish language Telemundo Arizona.