Pastor Robby Gallaty dedicated his
hour-long sermon on Sunday to explaining why Christians should feel
free to discriminate against gays.
Gallaty told his Brainerd Baptist
Church congregation that being gay is an offense to God.
“God said that the sins of the people
[of Sodom and Gomorrah] had infected the very land in which they
lived,” Gallaty
said. “So what happens to the people who engage in this
activity, this sexual immoral activity? Go to Leviticus 20, God
gives us the punishment for engaging in these sins … 'If a man
sleeps with a man as with a woman, they have both committed a
detestable thing. They must be put to death. And their blood is on
their own hands.”
Theologians, however, are not uniformly
in agreement that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality. Many, if not
most, explain that Sodom's sin was instead neglect of needy
travelers.
Homosexuality, Gallaty claimed, is an
“attack on the family and the marriage.”
He added that discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation was not the same as racial
discrimination.
“Here's the problem with the argument
that you closed-minded Christians, one day you're going to come full
circle, and you're going to realize that you're being judgmental just
like racism was 50 years ago,” he said. “And we finally realized
that racism was an issue for Christians.”
“And now you guys have repented and
come full circle, and you're going to realize that you're as foolish
as we were with the movement of racism. It's not the same. … A
black man can't change his race. A white man can't change his race.
A homosexual can stop engaging in homosexual acts. See, sexuality is
a choice. Gender and race are not.”
“You're not a homosexual. Listen to
me! You're not gay! You're not a lesbian! You're a child of God!”
he added. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
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