I have little respect for Southern Baptist pastors.
But when they preach the kind of abject hate Pastor Dillon Awes preached last Sunday, my disrespect turns into contempt.
Marking the start of Pride Month, Awes told his flock that every single gay "should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head."
Hitler-like, he called the mass executions "the solution for the homosexual in 2022."
Realizing his solution might sound a tad harsh, Awes deferred to Scripture.
"That’s what God teaches," he said. "That’s what the Bible says. You don’t like it? You don’t like God’s Word."
I never realized the Ancient Israelites had guns, or shot sinners in the back of the head.
You learn something every day.
In case you're wondering, Pastor Awes' Stedfast Baptist Church occupies a strip mall in Watauga, Texas, a suburb of Forth Worth.
The pastor, of course, doth protest too much.
We'll soon hear, in the manner of so many clergymen, that Awes has been arrested on charges of pedophilia, a crime that, in Texas, earns you a 99-year sentence.
Fine with me.
As Hunter S. Thompson said, "Anybody who wanders around the world saying, 'Hell yes, I'm from Texas,' deserves whatever happens to him."
Pastor Jonathan Shelley further justified Ames' venomous sermon by claiming all gays molest children.
"It is our duty," he said, "to warn families of a real threat that exists in our society."
Therein lies my concern.
Were these two morons not influential, they'd be irrelevant—nothing more than two out-of-touch Texas snake charmers.
But they are influential.
My fear is that scapegoating gays for all of society's problems will become a core GOP tenet; and Pastor Ames' "solution," a GOP policy.
