Pastor to high school seniors: You’re going to hell if you’re gay
“Nobody got bashed or anything. All I did was simply speak biblical truth… The number one audience that I have to please is God.”
–Pastor Scott Carpenter, speaking with North Carolina’s WBTV. Carpenter is under fire from angry parents who claim a baccalaureate service he gave at Kings Mountain High School was “anti-gay,” “bullying” and “simply an inappropriate topic,” after telling students that if they were homosexual, they’d be going to hell.
“Do I hate anybody? Absolutely not. I just love them too much not to tell them the truth,” Carpenter said. He continued, saying: “Was I trying to be mean spirited? Absolutely not. Was I trying to hurt somebody’s feelings? Absolutely not. I was simply had to do what I had to do as a Christian minister.”
One parent wasn’t convinced with Carpenter’s explanation.
“This is bullying. Bullying doesn’t have to happen from the back hallway of a school or a back parking lot,” Chuck Wilson said. “It can happen from the pulpit, it can happen from the stage. It’s a public school. There are children here. I think there should be some level of responsibility of the speaker coming in to not take advantage of a captive audience. It was just simply an inappropriate topic for a baccalaureate service.”
The school has stated that they’ll be more cautious in their speaker selection for next year’s service.
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