Punch a gay kid for Jesus

Sean Harris is the head bigot at the Berean Baptist Church in Fayettesville, North Carolina. In this sermon he tells parents to punch their son's if they aren't butch enough. All of his rhetoric is violent or appeals to violent images or violent actions.

He says if you son acts "girlish" you have "squash it like a cockroach." Apparently telling the boy to go "dig a ditch, because that's what boys do" will solve the issue. If you don't, this "dude, this kid, will be acting out childhood fantasies that should have be squashed." "Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up, give him a good punch." "When your daughter starts acting too butch, you reign her in." So, when it comes to children his images are squashing cockroachs, cracking a boy's wrist and punching him."

Is it any wonder that fundamentalist sects are so often involved in child abuse cases. In this case Harris is suggesting that if a child appears to be gay or transgendered that the parent should use violence against the child. Would you trust that man near your kids?

If you don't believe me, listen to this part of his sermon yourself.

Harris is now backtracking as his comments have become public. He now pretends it was all a joke. Apparently the doesn't think "thou shalt not lie" is part of the Bible anymore.

Harris does say "The word of God makes it clear that effeminate behavior is ungodly." Apparently he finds that in the Bible but the part about lying doesn't seem to ring to a bell. Actually, the Bible doesn't mention effeminate behavior as ungodly. Fundamentalists like to make shit up.


 As you can hear in the sermon above, when he calls for hitting children who appear "effeminate" he is cheered on with "Amens" from his Troglodyte congregation. When one suggests punching children for appearing gay it not only upset s"gay activists" but people who are concerned about child abuse as well. Rosie Ryan, president of Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina said: "This pastor is telling his congregation to harm their children." True, that is precisely what he was doing.

The church actually does support parents hitting their children but says "we reject the idea that bruising is ever the objective." Notice how carefully that is worded. It doesn't say that children don't get bruised from the beatings, it just says the beatings have objectives other than bruising.

He also claimed that there was "not an ounce of hate being communicated" in his sermon. Welcome to the Newspeak of fundamentalist Christianity. If you express hateful things about people you are doing so out of love because only you "love them enough to tell them the truth."

Fundamentalists tend to preach that hitting children is godly and ordained by scripture to protect them from turning to evil. So, Harris can tell the media that the teachers in his Christian school "never touches a child, other than to protect the child from harm" and mean it. There are entire books written by fundamentalists to explain how beating children protects them from harm and is necessary to help save their soul. They even give tips on how to conduct the beatings so as to not leave physical evidence, and why it must be done hidden from public views so others don't know of the abuse.