Religious people who are critical of the LGBT community and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage are "hypocritical," Georgia pastor E. Dewey Smith said in a videotaped sermon that was posted Thursday.
Smith, who is pastor of the House of Hope Atlanta in Decatur, Georgia, and the House of Hope Macon, chastised his congregation and others who "demonize and dehumanize" artists and even members of their own choir who are gay while enjoying and benefitting from their work.
"We have done what the slave master did to us," he said. "Dehumanize us, degrade us, demonize us, but then use them for our advantage."
Vocal opponents of homosexuality will cite Leviticus, Smith went on to say, but the same book of the Bible also prohibits eating shellfish, wearing mixed fabrics and sharing a bed with a woman while she's menstruating.
"Here’s my point. We pick and choose the scriptures that we want to use to beat folk up with, rather than look at our own lives."
"Look at your neighbor and tell your neighbor, ‘I don’t condemn you. I don’t judge you. I will preach Christ to you,'" he said. "You can’t evangelize and antagonize at the same time."
H/T Independent i100