Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Tennessee this weekend tp deliver a speech at a predominantly Black Memphis-area church, just one day before the nation celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. But it was not Pence’s remarks that are making headlines. Instead, those of Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor, who attacked gay people during his sermon – which the White House streamed live – are drawing criticism.
Bishop Taylor, the pastor and founder of the Holy City Church of God In Christ (COGIC), told his 800-member congregation, the Vice President, and the 67,000 people who have viewed the sermon on the White House’s YouTube channel, that homosexuality is caused by “a demonic spirit,” and is wrong because of people’s “plumbing,” while making a gay panic “joke,” as LGBTQ Nation reported.
“We got to expose what the devil is doing,” Bishop Taylor insisted, claiming the devil is “trying to destroy the foundation of marriage,” and “destroy the reproductive process.” The references are to same-sex marriage, and presumably to contraception and abortion, all issues his church opposes.
“Two men can’t have a baby,” Taylor continued, trying to make his case, while ignoring modern medicine and that same-sex couples can and do adopt, giving children in need loving homes. “Two women can’t have a baby.”
“It’s a demonic spirit that causes another woman to want to lie with another woman,” Taylor professed. “It’s a demonic spirit that causes another man, a man to be attracted to another man.”
“And then the man gets attracted to me and he’ll get in trouble – don’t put your hands on me,” he said, mocking gay people as his congregation laughed at his gay panic “joke.”
“God didn’t make us for that. He made a man to be a man. Somebody said, ‘If you want to know what God made you, when you go to the bathroom just check your plumbing.’ What kind of plumbing are you using?”
Not only did the White House live-stream the entire sermon, it included the video in its YouTube channel.
Neither a warning nor an apology is included.
The Vice President has not made any apologies either.
Watch (relevant remarks begin around the 2:42:53 mark):