Mike Pence attended an anti-gay sermon. The White House livestreamed it.
Pence visited a church in Memphis where the pastor called homosexuality "demonic"
The White House’s official YouTube channel livestreamed a sermon in which a pastor called homosexuality “demonic” and said that “the devil” is trying to destroy the traditional family.
The sermon, at Holy City Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tenn., on Sunday, Jan. 19, was attended by Vice President Mike Pence, who gave a speech during the service.
Pence honored civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling for those in attendance to “rededicate ourselves to the ideals that he advanced, if we strive to open doors of opportunities for every American and if we more faithfully follow the one that he followed, will see our way through these divided times.”
Following Pence, Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor proceeded to praise the notoriously anti-LGBTQ vice president, before launching into an anti-gay sermon that slammed gay relationships and gay people.
Related: Mike Pence believes that being gay is “a choice” and “learned behavior”
Of Pence, Taylor said he could “see God’s spirit in him. I believe that he is a man of God.”
Taylor then claimed “the devil” was attacking people’s foundations, including the traditional view of family, saying, “Two men can’t have a baby. Two women can’t have a baby.”
He continued: “It’s a demonic spirit that causes another woman to want to lie with another woman. It’s a demonic spirit that causes another man, a man to be attracted to another man.”
To laughter from those in attendance, Taylor then said, “And then the man gets attracted to me and he’ll get in trouble — don’t put your hands on me.”
“God didn’t make us for that. He made a man to be a man,” he added. “Somebody said, if you want to know what God made you, when you go to the bathroom check your plumbing. What kind of plumbing are you using?”
He then falsely claimed that there are no homosexual relationships between animals in nature, while discussing a documentary about elk fighting.
“You never see two male animals coming together,” he said. “Animals have not left the place that God calls them to be in.”
Taylor concluded his sermon by urging his congregation to “expose what the devil is doing.”
Pence is no stranger to anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Last June, he said that Donald Trump banning American embassies from flying LGBTQ Pride flags during Pride Month was “the right decision.”
In a statement on his congressional campaign website in 2000, he argued for resources to be directed away from “organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus” and instead go towards “those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”
As governor of Indiana, Pence supported the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” which allowed businesses and individuals to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
In addition, Pence opposes same-sex marriage, once telling Congress it would bring “societal collapse.” He opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And he opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would have banned discrimination against people based on sexuality.
In 2017, a New Yorker column alleged that Trump joked about Pence wanting to “hang” every gay person.
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