Church member defends NC pastor: LGBT people 'worthy of death'

Members of Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina are speaking out in defense their pastor after he called for "lesbians and queers" to be detained inside electric fences until they all die.

Geneva Sims told WCNC that she had been listening to Pastor Charles Worley's sermon's since the 1970s and agrees with the message.

"He had every right to say what he said about putting them in a pen and giving them food," Sims explained. “The Bible says they are worthy of death. He is preaching God’s word.”

Church member Stacey Pritchard agreed that Worley was just speaking the truth.

“Sometimes you’ve got to be scared straight,” she said. “He is trying to save those people from Hell.”

During a sermon on May 13, the pastor had taken to the pulpit to express outrage over President Barack Obama's support for marriage equality.

"The Bible is against it, God is against it, I’m against it and if you’ve got any sense you’re against it," he preached. “I figured a way out to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. But it isn’t going to pass in Congress. Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals, and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out, feed em, and you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce!”

Faith in America Executive Director Brent Childers told WCNC that Worley's message was dangerous to young LGBT people.

"That is what makes young LGBTs feel there is no hope," Childers warned. "When they see this type of rhetoric coming from a so-called Christian pastor, they aren’t going to want anything to do with the church—now or in the future."

“If you defend this pastor’s comments, you are mocking God’s love, God’s understanding and God’s knowledge.”

Watch this video from WCNC, broadcast May 22, 2012.

(h/t: Towleroad)