Metro Weekly

Republican Rants About Pride, Hopes God “Burns the Whole Place Down”

Oklahoma State Senate candidate Jarrin Jackson goes on rant calling being gay "disgusting," "unnatural," and sinful.

Jarrin Jackson – Photo: Facebook.

An Oklahoma Republican running for the State Senate went on an unhinged rant about celebrating Pride Month earlier this week in which he wished that the Rapture would occur and God would met out his vengeance against sinners, including the LGBTQ community.

Jarrin Jackson, a Christian nationalist running for the GOP nomination for the District 2 seat, located  in the exurbs of Tulsa, posted an hour-long video to the right-wing platform Rumble. In the video — which touches on a number of topics and conspiracy theories popular among the right-wing, including the Religious Right and people with anti-government views — Jackson starts off with a rant about Pride Month, calling homosexuality “unnatural” and “disgusting.”

In the video, first flagged in a June 7 rundown by Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way that reports on right-wing falsehoods and extremism, Jackson urges Christians to speak out against homosexuality as sinful and even to ridicule it. He says Christians must do this in order to get their message across that fornication of any kind — including homosexual behavior — is immoral and counter to God’s plan.

“Pride Month is in full swing,” Jackson says. “I think it would be deliciously ironic and eternally entertaining if God comes back today, gets us up out of here, and then burns the whole place down. It would be amazing, not only because it would be just and righteous and deserving, but because everybody who celebrates this godlessness — which is very few, by the way — most people are doing it because they are coerced. They are compelled.”

Jackson then accuses people who support LGBTQ rights of trying to promote the “lie” that “everyone is gay” or that homosexuality is acceptable. As evidence that most people implicitly “know” homosexuality is wrong or disgusting, he cites a study from 2017 finding that heterosexual men produce a physical response to two men kissing that is equivalent to seeing pictures of rotting flesh or maggots.

“People find it disgusting, especially straight dudes…. whenever they see other dudes kissing. It is gross. Being gay is gay. It is the most disgusting, despicable, stupid thing ever. Insert barf emoji,” he adds. “And yet, we’re supposed to celebrate this? We’re supposed to think it is normal? It ain’t normal!”

Jackson then cites a Biblical passage calling homosexuality “against nature,” adding: “These godless commies, these homosexual gay fornicating godless commies, are trying to foist upon everybody else that which is disgusting and dangerous and eternally damnable.”

Jackson also accuses corporate America of attempting to force the acceptability of homosexuality “down people’s throats,” and glorifying disgusting and dangerous behavior. He later attributes the glorification of homosexuality to Satan, who is allegedly trying to bring disorder into the world and throw a wrench into God’s plans for humanity — which ostensibly include heterosexual marriage and procreation.

Jackson previously made headlines back in March when he fired a gun at an old printer, which he pretended was a Dominion voting machine, to demonstrate his contempt for “godless commies” and global elites who ostensibly used Dominion voting machines to “steal” the 2020 election. In one of the printer trays is a piece of paper reading “Burn the Bible” in black magic marker, and in another is a hand-made list reading: “1. Steal Elections 2. Destroy America 3. New World Order.” His Rumble postings follow a similar vein of rants pushing various conspiracy theories.

Some Twitter users, upon seeing Right Wing Watch’s tweet clipping part of Jackson’s video condemning Pride Month and homosexuality, wondered why he — and other conservative Christians — appear to be obsessed with other people’s sex lives.

“I always have to wonder what the obsession with gay sex is. It really does seem to be the number one thing on their minds,” tweeted one user.

“The weird thing is that once those of us who were raised to think that being gay is abnormal actually see gay relationships and get accustomed to them, they don’t seem that strange to us,” replied another. “Except, mostly, for people who are closeted themselves. Those folks can’t seem to adjust.”

“There is an easy solution for his problem…” wrote a third, with a GIF animation of someone covering their eyes.

A fourth Twitter user tweeted: “I’m hetero, the thought of kissing a man disgusts me. But guess what? I’m not a child, I realize that it doesn’t disgust some men, it’s heaven for them. Most people learn as a child that other (sic) like different things than them and that’s OK.”

A fifth user then replied to that tweet, saying: “This. I mean the thought of a morbidly-obese hetero couple in their 70s having sex also grosses me out, but that doesn’t mean I think it should be illegal, or that they shouldn’t be allowed to hold hands in public or whatever. Live and let live.”

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