In the U.S., even the most right-wing of religious fundamentalists, even if they believe Scripture condemns LGBT people as deserving of death, usually pull their punches (or stones) and stop short of actually calling for the execution of anyone based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
But one Baptist minister in Arizona has not only called for an LGBT holocaust but put forth the claim that such a mass killing would wipe out AIDS by Christmas, Raw Story reports.
"It was right there in the Bible all along -- and they're out spending billions of dollars in research and testing. It's curable -- right there. Because if you executed the homos like God recommends, you wouldn't have all this AIDS running rampant," the Leviticus-quoting pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church said in a sermon delivered Sunday and then shared on the Web.
This isn't Anderson's first time taking an outrageous stance, or even his first time taking a pro-murder stance against the ostensibly recruiting, molesting forces of "sodomites" and "queers."
And LGBT people aren't the only ones on Anderson's better-dead-than-alive list; he previously made headlines when he said in a sermon that he
prayed for the death of President Barack Obama.
He previously embraced the Southern Poverty Law Center's designation of his church as a hate group, Right Wing Watch notes. "I do hate homosexuals and if hating homosexuals makes our church a hate group then that's what we are," he said.
Watch a video clip from Anderson's Sunday sermon:
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