9/28/2004 10:34:01 AM|||Chris|||Would somebody please explain to me why Jimmy Swaggart is still considered relevant to anything? Even by the low standards established by the Christian Right, this asshole is an embarrassment. In 1987, he was caught with a prostitute named Debrah Murphee, who claimed in an interview with Penthouse that not only did enjoy fucking her, but tried to talk her into letting him have her 9-year-old daughter. For his sins of using whores, pornography, and attempted pedophilia, he was defrocked for one year by the Assemblies of God. His public response was to break down in tears on his television ministry, begging the forgiveness of god and all the suckers who'd been sending him money for years. Three years later, in 1991, he got nailed in a car with another prostitute.

Apparently, though, neither experience was especially humbling. Swaggart rose to a new level of hatefulness during his September 12 service, when he told his audience that if a gay man ever looked at him that way, "I'm going to kill him and tell God that he died." (Y'know, Jim, Cain tried that, too.) Even more horribly, this was greeted by laughter and applause from his audience.

Apparently laughter was exactly the response that Swaggart was going for, because after a week of public criticism by gay groups and anyone else with a shred of common decency, Swaggart told us not to take it so seriously, 'coz it was just a joke. Again, Swaggart is making public apologies, but he's not breaking into tears this time. Instead, he claims that it was just a "silly cliche," and that "I will continue to preach against homosexuality, but do it in the right way."

Sometimes I forget, just for a moment, how sick and rotten to the core the Christian Right is. I'd like to thank Jimmy Swaggart for reminding me.

This post dedicated to the memory of Matthew Shepard.
|||109638195027696137|||Fag-Bashing: It's Funny!