Mike Pence delivered remarks at a church where an anti-LGBTQ pastor said that homosexuality is caused by “a demonic spirit” and is wrong because of “plumbing,” and the White House livestreamed his homophobic comments.
Pence said nothing in response.
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Pence spoke at the Holy City Church of God in Christ in Memphis this past Sunday, the day before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
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He made some anodyne statements about the civil rights leader: “I know in my heart of hearts if we rededicate ourselves to the ideals that he advanced, if we strive to open doors of opportunities for every American and if we more faithfully follow the one that he followed, will see our way through these divided times.”
Pence was followed by Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor, the pastor and founder of the Holy City Church of God in Christ, who gave an anti-LGBTQ sermon while the White House was livestreaming.
“I can see God’s spirit in him,” Taylor said of Pence. “I believe that he is a man of God.”
The theme of his sermon was foundations, and he said that “the devil” is trying to destroy people’s foundations, which includes the family.
“Two men can’t have a baby,” Taylor said. “Two women can’t have a baby.”
“It’s a demonic spirit that causes another woman to want to lie with another woman,” he continued. “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 to laughter, making a 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 check your plumbing. What kind of plumbing are you using?”
He was, presumably, referencing genitalia when he spoke about “plumbing.”
Taylor then said that he was watching elk fight on an animal documentary on television, which brought him to the following conclusion: “You never see two male animals coming together. Animals have not left the place that God calls them to be in.”
“We got to expose what the devil is doing,” he concluded, adding that he might “get beat up” for saying what he said but that God is on his side so it doesn’t matter.
Pence has a history of appearing in public with fiercely anti-LGBTQ speakers and with leaders of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.
The quoted parts start at around 2:43.
