Verity Baptist Church pastor Roger Jimenez has another problem – he has been asked to move. Mere hours after the horrific Orlando shooting, Mr. Jimenez stood on the pulpit where he said more gay people should have been killed because they are all sinners. The comments caused a deluge of backlash, which led to the landlord of the building where the church is located to ask him to relocate.
Members of the Verity Baptist Church will have to find another place to worship because the landlord of the 4,700 square feet building has announced that the lease will not be renewed. Churchgoers are in this predicament because of their pastor, Mr. Roger Jimenez.
As Americans were waking up to find out that a crazed gunman had killed 49 people and injured 53 others inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the pastor was on his pulpit in Sacramento, California asking why weren’t more members of the LGBT community killed. In his shocking sermon, the good old religious man said:
“The Bible does teach that homosexuality deserves the death penalty. My whole point was, if people die who deserve to die, we don’t need to be mourning that. This gunman there that shot people up, the Bible says he deserves to die. He died, and we shouldn’t be mourning his death, either. That’s the whole point I was making, and it’s been taken out of context.”
He continued:
“I’m kind of upset he didn’t finish the job — because these people are predators,” Jimenez said. “Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today? Um, no. I think that’s great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Fla., is a little safer tonight.”
He went on to say that he wished the government would put America’s entire LGBT population in front of a firing squad. Thousands took to social media to decry the pastor’s hurtful and homophobic comments.
More than 700 people stood in front of the Verity Baptist Church for days where they chanted “Love conquers hate” and “Hate is not a family value,” and asked the church’s landlord, Harsch Investment Properties, to take action, and they did. Harsch executives said in a statement that Jimenez’s church will not have its 4,700-square-foot lease renewed at the end of March 2017. The statement read:
“We stand with those who make their voices heard: Intolerance and hate are not the values that have made our country great. We have many places of worship and other religious organizations in the properties we manage. Like all our tenants, their occupancy rights are protected in their leases, but we will not tolerate tenants who advocate hatred and the taking of innocent lives.”
Jimenez eventually apologized for his hateful sermon.
