PMSFKS

It turns out that a Texas pastor who called for the deaths of LGBTQ people – saying he “would love it if every fag would die right now” – preaches his disturbing rhetoric directly to young children.

Jonathan Shelley of the Stedfast Bible Church in Hurst, Texas can be seen in a disturbing video recently posted to the church’s YouTube channel going off on a hate-filled rant against LGBTQ people and “fornicators” directed at an audience of small children.

“Fornicators aren’t welcome in the church!” Shelley yells “So if there’s a whore she’s supposed to be thrown out until she repents and gets back in, and then on top of that, the sodomite’s never allowed in for any vow.”

“Love is love,” he then said in a mocking voice, “No. There’s no promise you could make, there’s nothing you can say, you’re never welcome go away. I just can’t wait until you just go to Hell.”

Shelley has declared that gay men are all pedophiles and once celebrated the death of a 75-year-old gay man. Jim Fahy, a member of the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus, was killed when a driver accidentally drove into the Wilton Manors Pride Parade.

“And, you know, it’s great when trucks accidentally go through those, you know, parades,” Pastor Shelley said about the tragedy. “I think only one person died. So hopefully we can hope for more in the future.”

“You say, ‘Well, that’s mean.’ Yeah, but the Bible says that they’re worthy of death!” he continued. “They say, ‘Are you sad when fags die?’ No. I think it’s great! I hope they all die! I would love it if every fag would die right now.”

“And you say, ‘Well, I don’t think that’s what you really mean.’ That’s exactly what I mean. I really mean it!”

In a video somehow meant to defend the church, Shelley declared that “one of the most evil, wicked things on this planet is men with men, that grotesque and disgusting abomination.”

He added, “I’ve never advocated violence towards any singular person…I’ve only ever advocated for the legal sanctioned death penalty for homosexuals.”

(Quoting the 14th Amendment)nor shall any State deprive any person of life...without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I don't see any of these children receiving their equal protection.

Let's say a person is forced against their will to be chained to you. Do you have the right to kill them?

Or, how about we take a trip to the not-so-distant past: These children cannot speak up for themselves, literally. Historically speaking, though they could certainly try literally, people denied civil rights legally could not speak up for themselves in almost every case. Tell me, what side of history do people tend to be on when denying civil rights to people who cannot defend themselves? Consider, for example, the historical south. They were the holdouts over slavery, long after others recognized that your race does not make you any less of a human. Slaveowners asserted they had rights to their slaves, that their slaves had no rights, and ensured that their slaves could not speak up without fear of punishment. One civil war and 13th amendment later, and Jim Crow started. Same thing, except on paper non-whites had some rights that southern states chose to completely ignore anyway.

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The only difference now is that those being denied their civil rights physically can't even tell someone their rights are being violated instead of simply being at great risk to do so. The parallels to the racist south do not stack up in favor of the pro-choice movement. At this point I'm just waiting for a national act or constitutional amendment formally protecting unborn rights to complete this part of the story, and protecting the post-born is the next domino in the life movement anyway, much like a paper acceptance of civil rights was the first domino to full civil rights. Much like the pro-desegregation generation is already virtually gone, the solely pro-birth generation is already fading away.

At the end of the day, abortion is a conflict of rights: the mother's right to space and autonomy and the child's right to life. Neither should be infringed, but one has to. You have made it clear whose rights you see as greater, I disagree with that assessment. Citing people who simply assert that these children in fact do not have these civil rights is not going to change this.