Mike Pence gives sermon in packed homophobic megachurch slap bang in the middle of a coronavirus hotspot
The event did not require face masks, or any kind of social distancing. (Mike Pence/ Twitter)
US vice president Mike Pence gave a sermon this weekend to an anti-LGBT+ megachurch packed with more than 2,000 people, in a COVID-19 hotspot.
The number of coronavirus cases in Dallas, Texas, continues to climb and shows no sign of slowing, with the county reporting a record 570 new cases on Sunday, June 28.
The vice president’s own Coronavirus Task Force designated Texas as a COVID-19 “hotspot” two days previously.
But Mike Pence – who has consistently refused to abide by coronavirus safety measures – decided that the area would be the perfect place to give a sermon in an anti-LGBT+ church.
He visited Dallas First Baptist Church, led by viciously Islamophobic and anti-LGBT+ pastor Robert Jeffress, to give a “freedom Sunday” sermon to an audience of 2,100 people.
The event did not require face masks, or any kind of social distancing.
Our Celebrate Freedom Sunday service is LIVE now on https://t.co/NyQuGgrFqX! pic.twitter.com/tk7nuwSzlJ
— First Baptist Dallas (@firstdallas) June 28, 2020
According to the homophobic megachurch’s website, it believes: “Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime… A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.”
Jeffress’s well-documented history of anti-LGBT+ remarks includes claiming gay people “molest children”, promoting the so-called conversion of young queer people, and that being gay is a “filthy practice” that leads to disease.
He has even compared gay sex to plugging a TV electrical cord into the wrong outlet and causing it to explode.
Speaking on his radio show in 2012, Jeffress said: “Why is there such a high incidence of disease among homosexuals? They are engaged in the most detestable, unclean, abominable acts you can imagine.
“Because what they are doing is unnatural, it goes against nature, because of that filthy practice; there is a natural result to it. There is natural, physical consequences to homosexual behaviour.
“That’s why God says don’t engage in it, you are going to harm your bodies in doing so.”
Since 2016, Jeffress has been a member of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board and White House Faith Initiative as well as being a contributor to Fox News.
