This pastor told his congregation not to mourn Orlando victims, told Government to ‘finish the job’
A pastor has refused to apologise after saying “all homosexuals are paedophiles”, telling his congregation not to mourn for the victims of the Orlando shooting and calling for the Government to “finish the job”.
Baptist Roger Jimenez gave a sermon the day of the Orlando Pulse gay club mass shooting, which left 49 dead and 53 injured.
He told his congregation he would not be mourning for the victims of the shooting because many of the deceased and injured are LGBT.
“The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die” Jimenez said, adding: “Florida is a little safer tonight”.
He added: “What if you asked me ‘are you sad that 50 paedophiles were killed today’… no, I think that’s great… I think that helps society.”
The Verity Baptist Church pastor later spoke to CBS Sacramento, refusing to apologise, saying he wished “they finished the job”.
Despite receiving many messages of disgust at the comments he made in his sermon, Jimenez claims that he has received messages of support and thanks from other Christians for “finally” speaking out.
A video of the sermon was removed from the Verity Baptist Church’s YouTube page after it was reported for hate speech.
Jimenez denies that he is inciting hate or advocating for the murder of LGBT people.
Instead, he thinks the Government should do just that, saying in the sermon: “If we lived in a righteous government, they should round them all up and put them up against a firing wall, and blow their brains out.”
The pastor went on to say the Bible states that homosexuality is sinful and should be punished with death.
“As far as the Bible is concerned, they crossed a line. The sin they performed is worthy of death,” he said.
“I realise our society doesn’t take that, but that’s what the bible says. If someone does something that’s worthy of death and they end up dying, I’m not gonna mourn them.”
Speaking to CBS, he said he thought Orlando was safer because of the deaths of those at the nightclub.
“Absolutely I think they are safer now because of these deaths, and the reason I think that is because I believe all of these homosexuals are pedophiles, and the Bible–see our culture and our society puts them in these categories–gay, lesbian, whatever, but that’s not found in scripture. And I understand the world does not want to accept that, that’s fine. I’m saying as a Christian, the Bible puts people in two categories: normal/natural, unnatural,” Jimenez said.
A protest took place this week against the pastor by members of and supporters of the LGBT community.
Check out a video of some of his words, via Fusion, below:
49 people were killed and 53 injured on Sunday in the shocking terrorist hate crime attack, which saw a gunman open fire inside The Pulse gay bar in Orlando, Florida.
ISIS has since claimed responsibility for the attack, which was perpetrated by US citizen Omar Mateen. The majority of the victims were Latino.
In a statement, President Obama mourned the victims of the homophobic hate crime attack and called for greater restrictions on arms sales.
In response, Republican nominee Donald Trump said Obama should resign for failing to rally against Islam in his comments.
The attack has been condemned by American Muslim leaders, who addressed ISIS in saying: “You do not speak for us.”
But millions of people around the world have showed solidarity with the victims of the shooting and the community in Orlando,
Earlier this week, a threat was posted to Craigslist in San Diego, praising the shooting in Orlando, and reading: “San Diego, you’re next”.
Two US Marines are also being investigated for posting a photo with an assault rifle with the caption “Coming to a gay bar near you” on Facebook.
