Today in Disgusting People

There's quite a field in the aftermath of Orlando. I'll let you take your pick.

Let's start off with Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA -- no surprises there), who thinks it's appropriate to read Bible verses at meetings of GOP legislators:

The freshman Republican opened the House GOP weekly meeting by telling his colleagues who had voted the night before for an LGBT protections bill that they were "going to hell," then read from the Christian Bible's Books of Romans and Revelations passages that attack LGBT people as sinners in devastating detail.

"Yes. I read a scripture from Romans and that’s what I did," Allen told Roll Call. “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.”

Something tells me he just doesn't get it.

Pastor Kevin Swanson (and that's "Pastor" with a capital "P" and don't you forget it) is always a prime candidate for this slot:

Yesterday, Colorado-based pastor Kevin Swanson addressed the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando by arguing that homosexuality and Islam are both inherently violent because God gives gay people and Muslims up to their dishonorable ways and other sins like murder.

“Why do homosexuals murder homosexuals?” he asked. Because, according to Romans 1, “God gave them up to vile passions.” “Violence” and “murder,” he said, are deeply tied to homosexuality.

“What’s the bottom line as we view what’s happening in Orlando today?” he said. “I think it is, again, the Romans 1 scenario, it is that God gives them up.”

The Orlando massacre, Swanson added, shows what happens when God’s “restraints have been lifted entirely and when God doesn’t restrain, people go nuts in their sins.”

Swanson has a history:

Swanson on homosexuality:

Boycotts Girl Scout cookies because they “promote lesbianism” and “I don’t want my little girl turning into a lesbian.”

Discussed whether the Rose Bowl should include a float where a gay person is stoned to death.

Lamented that these days country singer Kacey Musgraves wasn’t lynched for her “promotion of homosexuality” through song.

Urged people to hold up signs telling gay couples to die on their wedding day.

Defended a Ugandan measure to make homosexuality a criminal offense punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty, saying he was glad the country was “standing strong” by adopting extreme anti-gay laws.

Agreed that gay marriage is like the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Wanted America to have anti-gay laws “much like what the Pilgrims had” (the Pilgrims believed that homosexuality should be punishable by death, banishment and whippings) and enforce biblical law “that says that homosexuals should be put to death.”

There's more at the link. The man hates everyone.

You may have heard of Pastor Roger Jiminez, who celebrated the massacre in a sermon. He's not backing down:

Police were still identifying and removing bodies from the Pulse gay night club in Orlando when Sacramento pastor Roger Jimenez of Verity Baptist Church posted a sermon on YouTube equating gay people with pedophiles and wishing that more people were dead. “If we lived in a righteous government, they should round them all up and put them up against a firing wall, and blow their brains out,” he said. “The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. The tragedy is — I’m kind of upset that he didn’t finish the job!”

The video was removed by YouTube for violating its standards on hate speech. But Jimenez was unrepentant on Tuesday, telling the Sacramento Bee:

All I’m saying is that when people die who deserve to die, it’s not a tragedy,” he added. Jimenez spoke these words in a kind monotone befitting a loan officer discussing interest rates at a local bank branch. …Though he didn’t talk long, he wanted people to know he wasn’t backing down from his words. “There are many people who agree with us,” he said. “In America, you are no longer allowed to have an opinion that goes against mainstream society.”

Actually, in America you are allowed to have an opinion that goes against mainstream society. And you'll be criticized for it. Sorry, but it takes a thick skin to survive in a free society.

And last, but certainly not least, Pastor Steven Anderson (and have you noticed how many of these creeps are pastors?):

“The good news is there’s fifty less pedophiles in the world. You know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles. That’s who was a victim here, are a bunch of just disgusting homosexual at a gay bar, okay?”

There's more at the link, if you can stomach it. I'm not going to bother with the fact that his whole screed is counter-factual: for people like this, ignorance, especially if it hurts someone, is their stock in trade.

Gah. I have to go wash my brain out with bleach.