The Rev. Franklin Graham criticized pro-gay marriage comments made by the former President Jimmy Carter by saying that gay people will receive the same punishment as the Biblical towns of Sodom and Gomorrah.
After a 2015 HuffPost Live interview Carter gave where he said Jesus would have approved of same-sex marriage resurfaced, Graham took to Facebook to express his dissent.
"He is absolutely wrong when he said Jesus would approve of gay marriage," the son of the late Rev. Billy Graham wrote. "Jesus didn’t come to promote sin, He came to save us from sin."
"The Bible is very clear," Graham's post continued. "God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of homosexuality. God defines sin in His Word—it’s not up to our opinion, the latest poll, or a popular vote."
Graham went on to write that he finds it "very troubling is that some people may read what President Carter has said and believe it, whether it was this week or from a video 3 years ago that is now recirculating."
To illustrate that God disapproves of homosexuality, the evangelist included a from the Book of Romans that included what many conservative Christians consider to be a rebuke of sex between people of the same gender.
"For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due," part of Graham's excerpt from Romans 1:24-27 read.
In most readings of the Biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, God punishes the townspeople for engaging in homosexual acts and "vice." It's a common refrain among right-wing Christians to argue against homosexuality.
