Pastor claims gay people ‘are as bad as Hitler’
(Pexels)
A South African pastor allegedly left students in tears after he claimed gay people “are as bad as Hitler” during a school visit.
According to Cape Talk, Pickard Henn was invited to speak as a ‘motivational speaker’ at a Christian event at De Kuilen High in Kuils River on Wednesday 17 July. But the clergyman caused an outrage when he likened the LGBTQ+ community to murderers and paedophiles.
It is also believed that he compared people who have sex before marriage to prostitutes during the talk too.
Despite the controversy surrounding his lecture, Henn returned to the school on Friday 19 July to take part in its regular assembly, hosted by organisation Christellike Studente Vereeniging. There, he supposedly said that all babies are born sinners and that sangomas – traditional South African healers – are ‘of the devil.’
Students who were affected by Henn’s comments are reportedly being offered counselling.
Henn recently sat down with Cape Talk‘s Kieno Kammies and denied the accusations, saying: “When I went to the school on the Friday morning, there was none of that stuff in the service. Nothing was said about gay people on the Friday morning. I have it all on recording.”
However, he went on to add that he would “not preach a half gospel” and that before he went into the school the first time, he “asked the teacher “if I can preach the full gospel here, because it not, I’ll get in my car and go home.”
Director of Communications hopes school will use Henn’s comments as an example what intolerance can do
“While the school doesn’t adopt a complete Christian ethos, or a complete Muslim ethos, we do not want to stop learners from expressing their religious freedoms and rights,” Western Cape Education Department’s Bronagh Hammond told Kammies when asked by Henn was given a platform at the educational establishment.
“We don’t want to shut down engagements like this. However, in this instance, of course, we want to shut down anyone that would come into our school and spew such vitriol,” she added. “We’re just hoping that the school uses this as an opportunity to showcase what intolerance can do and what hatred can come out of intolerance.”
