Fire And Brimstone Pastor Who Said He’d Set Himself On Fire Over Gay Marriage Now Getting Cold Feet

A Texas pastor who said he would set himself on fire if the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law is now singing a different tune.

If there’s one thing the religious right is good at it’s being hyperbolic. 

Take Texas religious fundamentalist and former Southern Baptist pastor Rick Scarborough, who last week said he would set himself on fire in the event the U.S. Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

“We are not going to bow. We are not going to bend, and if necessary we will burn,” Scarborough said, as NCRM reported. “The preachers need to get out front, the leaders need to get out front, out front of these ordinary citizens and say, ‘Shoot me first,'” the pastor insisted.

Well, as it turns out, Scarborough, the founder and president of the anti-gay, anti-women group Vision America, is now getting cold feet. Literally a few hours after the Supreme Court’s historic marriage ruling was handed down Friday, Scarborough was forced to walk back his hyperbolic decree.

“I made that comment to paraphrase a spiritual song, ‘Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,’ in which the three were given a choice — to bow to the image of Nebucahdnezzar or burn in a furnace,” the Huffington Post reports Scarborough saying in a statement. “‘We will burn’ means that we will accept any sanction from the government for resisting today’s Supreme Court decision. We do not support any violence or physical harm,” he continued, neglecting to add, “to myself.”

In other words, oops.

Scarborough is also the founder of a right wing group called Tea Party Unity. He’s claimed AIDS is God’s “judgement as a result of an immoral act.” And in 2013, Scarborough voiced another crazed idea: He called for a class-action lawsuit against homosexuality.

 

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Image: Screenshot via FRC/YouTube