I mentioned yesterday that Pastor Donnie Romero of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas had stepped down from the pulpit after it was revealed that he had smoked pot, gambled, and paid for sex. Which is both shocking and not-at-all shocking from a family values preacher who celebrated the deaths of gay people.

Well, it’s been announced that his replacement will be Pastor Jonathan Shelley of Pure Words Baptist Church in Houston… and rest assured that the hate speech will continue.

Shelley first came to my attention a few months ago when he delivered a sermon-rant against vaccines, rebutting a website’s 10 reasons to get one with reasons that had no basis in reality.

“#1. Vaccine-preventable diseases haven’t gone away.” They say, why you should get a vaccine? Because all these diseases I read for you, that you never heard anybody get, that you’ve never seen, that nobody’s dying from, they supposedly haven’t gone away, okay? So… they’re still in existence somewhere out there. It’s basically the bogey-man effect, okay? There’s somebody has measles out there somewhere. We don’t know anybody that has it. We haven’t seen ’em, okay? You don’t know ’em. But they’re out there somewhere. So you still need to get that vaccine. Alright? … The best reason to get a vaccination is the fact that some of these diseases are somewhere?!

He was urging people to avoid vaccines because he didn’t know anyone who had the diseases in question. (Spoiler: That’s because vaccines mostly eradicated them.)

Weeks later, he delivered a separate rant against LGBTQ people that was so vile, I was afraid to include a transcript in my post about it because I worried it would get flagged as hate speech on my end.

No wonder Romero’s church is ready to move on despite the moral failings of their former leader. They have another bigot who’s even worse just waiting on the other side, and that’s a plus in the hiring department.

(via Christian Nightmares)

