New Zealand pastor tells Christian author he prays for him to commit suicide

AUKLAND, New Zealand — A New Zealand pastor has admitted to sending a hate-filled email to a prominent gay Christian author in which he tells the author he prays for him to commit suicide.

Logan Robertson of the Westcity Bible Baptist Church in Aukland, says he stands by an email he sent to writer and community advocate Jim Marjoram calling him a “filthy child molesting fag.”

Gay NZ first reported that the message came after Marjoram had emailed churches across Auckland seeking support for his initiative “Silent Gays,” which offers support to people “trapped and silently suffering” in churches and religious systems. He was left shocked by Robertson’s response.

The pastor, who runs his small church out of his home, says he sent the email because he doesn’t agree with “the homosexual lifestyle and so I thought I’d send him an email back with my piece of mind about it.”

“We are not interested in your filthy lifestyle or book,” writes Robertson. “The Bible says you are vile, strange (queer), reprobate, filth, sodomite, natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed.

“I pray that you will commit suicide, you filthy fag.”

Robertson says the Bible says gay people should be put to death, “and if we had a righteous government, that’s what we’d be doing.”

“Instead of letting them go out and pretend to get married when they’re not … the Bible doesn’t even say anything about these fags getting married. They should just be stoned to death instead. That’s what the Bible says. And I hope they all die,” Robertson says, echoing similar sentiments by an Arizona pastor who has made headlines in recent days by saying the world could have an “AIDS-free Christmas” if all gays were put to death.

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The email exchange, which was shared on Reddit and Facebook, has sparked outrage on social media, but Robertson says he does not regret sending the missive to Marjoram.

“I didn’t tell him to go and commit suicide. I said I prayed that he would,” Robertson told the New Zealand Herald.

Marjoram says Robertson’s message “epitomizes what a lot of fundamentalists and that type of really heavy religious people [have as] attitudes.”

“I realized it’s exactly the sort of reason why I created my support group, because of people like him and those attitudes that…creep through the church,” adds Marjoram.