Used to be a big barn-like bar on east side of Pasadena, Houston
suburb. Mud parking lot, popular imitation bull inside for drugstore
cowboys to ride. Owned by a Jimmy Swaggart relative when Swaggart was
making money hand over fist from religious nutcases, as he pranced from
one side of the stage to the other, Bible elevated high in one hand,
gesticulating with the other, and babbling about his Je-eee-sus Morality.
Got caught with a prostitute (one among many), and explained he had
talked to God-Duh about it and God-Duh told him it wasn't anybody's
business.
Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart apologized Wednesday for saying in a
televised worship service that he would kill any gay man who looked
at him romantically.
A complaint was filed with a Canadian broadcasting group, and
Swaggart said his Baton Rouge-based Jimmy Swaggart Ministries has
received complaints from gay groups over the remarks made on the
Sept. 12 telecast.
In the broadcast, Swaggart was discussing his opposition to gay
marriage when he said "I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to
marry."
"And I'm going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like
that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died," Swaggart said to
laughter and applause from the congregation.
On Wednesday, Swaggart said he has jokingly used the expression
"killing someone and telling God he died" thousands of times, about
all sorts of people. He said the expression is figurative and not
meant to harm.
"It's a humorous statement that doesn't mean anything. You can't lie
to God -- it's ridiculous," Swaggart told The Associated Press. "If
it's an insult, I certainly didn't think it was, but if they are
offended, then I certainly offer an apology."
Audio recordings of the Sept. 12 statements have circulated on
gay-themed Web sites.
One complaint was sent to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council,
a self-regulating industry group that enforces broadcast standards,
after a Toronto television station broadcast the service, said Ann
Mainville-Neeson, the group's executive director.
Cheryl Jacques, head of the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights
Campaign, which represents homosexuals, bisexuals and transgendered
people, said Swaggart should preach equality for all Americans.
"Apologies don't discourage violence -- action does. We hope that he
takes action," Jacques said. "His language only encourages an
environment where hate crimes occur."
Swaggart was a popular television evangelist during the 1980s until
a 1987 sex scandal involving a prostitute that he met in a seedy New
Orleans motel. Swaggart never confessed to anything more than an
unspecified sin. A few years later, he was stopped by police while
driving in California with a suspected prostitute in his car.
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Jimmy Swaggart Ministries: www.jsm.org/exploreJSM.cfm
<http://www.jsm.org/exploreJSM.cfm>