Roger Jiminez–Daily Douche-bag Award Winner

There’s plenty of bile bubbling up out of the bowels of fundamentalist Christianity in the west over the shooting in Orlando. We’ve cited some of it here, and I’m sure we’ll be calling out more. Some is not so directly hateful, but comes from mainline church people, who think simply claiming they love everyone…but….(there’s always that qualifier) absolves them of any contribution to the hate leveled at the LGBT community. I promise we will get to some of those.

In the meantime, clearly, one of the most hateful is Roger Jiminez of Sacramento, California’s Verity Baptist Church. Jiminez has said:

“As a Christian, we shouldn’t be mourning the death of 50 sodomites. Let me go ahead and start right there. As a Christian, we shouldn’t be sad or upset…The bible does teach that homosexuality deserves the death penalty,” he said, admitting he has no regrets for his sermon. “Leviticus 20:13 says that if a man lie with mankind like he does with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and will surely be put to death. Romans 1 says that they which commit such things are worthy of death…”

He tried to explain his theology by saying, “if people die who deserve to die, we don’t need to be mourning that.”

As is too often the case, he wants to include the old escape clause of, “but I’m not encouraging anyone to commit violence.” I’ve had this same argument in a United Methodist Conservative discussion group. I know they know that people who might be predisposed to violence against LGBT people, and who might be immature in their biblical understanding (which is most western Christians), can lead them to believe that killing LGBT people is a righteous act.

So, for maybe giving the most hateful sermon on the very day of the massacre, we’re going to give Jiminez our Daily Douche-bag award.