BATON ROUGE, La. – Christian television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart apologized
Wednesday for saying in a televised worship service that he would kill any gay man who looked at him romantically.
A complaint was filed with a Canadian broadcasting group and Swaggart said his
Baton Rouge-based Jimmy Swaggart Ministries has received complaints from gay groups over the remarks made on the Sept. 12 telecast.
In the broadcast, Swaggart was discussing his opposition to gay marriage when he said "I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry."
"And I'm going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I'm
going to kill him and tell God he died," Swaggart says, to laughter and
applause from the congregation.
On Wednesday, Swaggart said he's jokingly used the expression "killing someone and telling God he died" thousands of times, about all sorts of people. He
said the expression is figurative, and not meant to harm. |
