Kevin Swanson, the anti-gay, right-wing pastor who hosted the very strange National Religious Liberties Conference earlier this month, commented on the Paris attacks on a recent episode of his show, Generations Radio. Known for his tactless way with words, Swanson called the 89 victims of the Bataclan massacre “devil worshippers.”
The Daily Beast reports Swanson thinks God is angry at America for allowing same-sex marriage and suggests the events at the Bataclan are a sign of his wrath. “They’re symbolic to what’s happening in our entire society today, and when you get a wake-up call like what happened at France’s 9/11 last Friday night at the concert, I think we all need to pay attention to what’s happening,” said Swanson. He continued, “This is a message from God. God is shooting a shot across the bow and we better be paying attention to this. Music matters, culture matters.” Swanson also believes homosexuality should be punishable by death, Harry Potter is the work of the devil and Disney’s Frozen is part of an evil lesbian agenda.
He also focused on “Kiss The Devil,” the Eagles of Death Metal song the band had begun to play as gunmen opened fire on the crowd. “At the moment they were singing that, the devil himself, or at least the devil influencing these murderers, entered in showed the concertgoers the works of the devil,” he said. “Now at that point,” he continued, “I think we need to ask concert-goers, at least those who survived, ‘Did you love the devil and did you love the devil’s works as your friends were being shot up in that massacre?’”
He then made a weird claim about not taking sides. “These ISIS devil-worshippers have pitted themselves against humanist devil-worshippers. I’m not on either side here,” Swanson explained. “I’m not taking the side of the devil-worshippers performing the concert; I’m not on the side of ISIS who are slaughtering the devil-worshippers inside the concert. I’m not on neither side.”
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Image via AP.