Before a meeting of House Republicans last month, freshman Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) offered a prayer where he read from Bible verses that condemn homosexuality. One passage he reportedly recited goes as far as to say that gays are “worthy of death.” The incident occurred as House Republicans repeatedly blocked efforts to insert nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people into federal spending bills, and just weeks before a gay nightclub in Orlando was shot up in what stands as the deadliest mass shooting perpetrated by a single gunman in American history.
Meeting attendees leaked news of Allen’s prayer to the media. One Republican lawmaker who was there told The Hill that Allen’s comments were “f — -ing ridiculous.” His prayer was quickly condemned by JoDee Winterhof, the Human Rights Campaign’s senior vice president of policy and and political affairs, who released a statement saying, “House Speaker Paul Ryan and the other members of the House Republican Leadership have a responsibility to immediately condemn Representative Allen’s vile and dangerous remarks this morning at an official meeting of the House Republican Conference, during which he said LGBT people are ‘worthy of death.’”
“At a time when LGBT people face staggering rates of discrimination, harassment and violence, Representative Allen’s comments spread hate that does real harm,” Winterhof added. “Representative Allen should apologize or be censured — and Republican leaders must make clear that they will not tolerate lawmakers who sow hatred and violence against LGBT people.”
That censure was never forthcoming, and in the wake of last Sunday’s massacre in Orlando, Republicans’ views on LGBT people are coming under renewed scrutiny. But in an interview with Roll Call, Allen said he has no regrets about his prayer.
Anti-LGBT Lawmakers Race To Condemn Islam While Ignoring Their Own Roles In Anti-LGBT ViolenceLGBT by CREDIT: MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show After Saturday’s horrific mass shooting at an Orlando, Florida gay bar…thinkprogress.org“I just simply shared that, in what’s supposed to be a private setting with fellow members of my conference, just like I would in a Bible study,” Allen said. “I consider that we are all imperfect and we all fall short of the glory of God, which is why we need a savior, by the way.”
“My wife and I, our prayers are with those family and friends,” Allen added. “The members of Congress who represent that district are just devastated.”
During the prayer, Allen reportedly read from Romans 1:18–32, which states:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.”
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Allen spokeswoman Madison Fox told Roll Call that despite the suggestion that homosexuals are “worthy of death,” Allen didn’t mean it like that.
“The passage in Romans discusses sin, in all its shapes and sizes,” she said. “The congressman will be the first to admit that he is a sinner, as we all sin — but he never condemned anyone or would condemn anyone, especially not to death.”
Fox went on to ignore the fact that the Orlando shooting appears to have targeted LGBT people.
Senator David Perdue Wants Supporters To Pray For Obama’s Days To ‘Be Few’Politics by & CREDIT: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta A Republican senator mocked President Barack Obama today using a…thinkprogress.org“The attack in Orlando was a terrorist attack on all humanity and the freedoms we have as Americans,” she told Roll Call. “It was the act of a radical Islamic terrorist who was hell bent on murdering innocent people.”
Many of Allen’s fellow Republicans have also refused to acknowledge that the violence in Orlando targeted the LGBT community, but even those who have are having to confront the fact that their actions don’t match their words.
oh ok. pic.twitter.com/FjS3yXDKvZ
— Anthony Oliveira (@meakoopa) June 15, 2016
Others, like presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have used the Orlando shooting to try and drive a wedge between the LGBT community and Muslims. A number of prominent Republicans have blamed the attacks on radical Islam but failed to account for the role their own anti-LGBT views have played in legitimizing homophobia.