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=> Score another one for Freedom of Speech what a joke

Score another one for Freedom of Speech what a joke
Posted by Dubya (Guest) - Thursday, September 30 2004, 1:05:35 (CEST)
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Below is a complaint from the Gay community they are threatning to sue the Church to take away their tax exempt status...I bet the ACLU will be up in center firing away

Swaggart: 'I Made A Mistake'
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff


Posted: September 22, 2004 11:04 am ET

(New Orleans, Louisiana) Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart Tuesday said he regrets telling his followers that if a gay man ever looked at him romantically he would kill him.

"It was a tongue-in-cheek statement best left unsaid. I won't make it anymore," Swaggart told the Times-Picayune in an interview.

A tape of the original broadcast tends to dispute Swaggart assertion that the comment was made as humor. (story)

In a fiery attack on gay marriage Swaggart said: "I'm trying to find the correct name for it ... this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. ... I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died."

The remarks were met with applause from his congregation.

The sermon was broadcast last week throughout the United States and Canada. A Canadian viewer complained to that country's broadcast regulator prompting an investigation. The Toronto station on which the program aired has apologized. The remarks also may have contravened Canadian hate speech laws.

Swaggart now says he was killing as a figure of speech. "I've said it about other people, including other preachers," he told the Times-Picayune.

"Apologies don't discourage violence, action does," said Human Rights Campaign President Cheryl Jacques.

"We urge Jimmy Swaggart to affirmatively preach against hate violence. He should use his position in the pulpit to speak up for equal treatment for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. His initial comments encourage an environment where hate crimes occur. We appreciate his apology, but it's imperative that he do more."

But, Swaggart dismissed suggestions that his remarks could encourage violence against gays and lesbians.

"Good gracious alive, it would be a long stretch of the imagination to come up with that," the Baton Rouge-based preacher said.

Even so, he said, "I was unwise in making the statement. All of us have made statements we wish we hadn't made. That was one for me."

It is not the first thing Swaggart wishes he had not done, and has been forced to publicly apologize for.



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