Gay rights group: Probe Swaggart's taxes

sacbee ^ | 9-28-04

[LouAvul]

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A gay rights group is asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax-exempt status of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries following the preacher's recent remark that he would "kill" any gay man who looked at him.

The Capital City Alliance suggested that Swaggart's remarks disqualify his businesses from continuing to enjoy no-tax privileges.

"Swaggart Businesses/Ministries should not continue to enjoy the benefits of 'tax-free living' when his organizations use millions of tax-free dollars to travel around and degrade taxpaying Americans," said Joe Traigle, the group's co-chairman. In a broadcast this month, 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. He later apologized, saying the remark was meant to be humorous.

The gay rights group dismissed Swaggart's apology Tuesday. "We all know that there are people out there that take these things very, very seriously," said Randal Beach, a lawyer for the organization.

Swaggart was a popular television evangelist during the 1980s until a 1987 sex scandal involving a prostitute that he met in a seedy New Orleans motel. Swaggart never confessed to anything more than an unspecified sin. A few years later, he was stopped by police while driving in California with a suspected prostitute in his car.

[next view]

it's bad when the gays start kicking jimmy swaggart around. if anyone should be open-minded about human sexuality, one would think it would be the gays.

[lsucat]

If I remember correctly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley are both his cousins.

[Restorer]

He's not important, but he is an embarassment.

[little jeremiah]

Homosexual Agenda Ping. Hmmm, interesting. Sure, Swaggart sounded off foolishly. But how many homosexual radicals have spoken or written vile, offensively, hateful, threatening words?

What kind of speech should be forbidden? What kind of speech should be legal?

Hatespeech laws are the next step after hate crimes. Homosexual activists and their sycophants in the media and elsewhere are straining at the leash for hatespeech laws.

Let me and Scripter know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.

[LouAvul]

IIRC, it was Jerry Lee Lewis. He married his 13 year old cousin, I believe. Nearly torpedoed his career.

[Restorer]

Can't disagree.

Lots of people think Christians must change their message to suit what's popular today.

Don't they realize that the original Christian message was so unpopular that many (including Christ himself) died for proclaiming it?

[joesnuffy]

"Great Balls of Fire"...Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley are his cousins...
(Swaggert was played by Alex Baldwin in the Jerry Lee movie)

[nothingnew]

Swaggart is a major embarassment, but I'm sick to death hearing from faggots and their support groups. They have a direct impact on my country...Swaggart has none.

FMCDH(BITS)

[newzjunkey]

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 said to laughter and applause from the congregation...

..."It's a humorous statement that doesn't mean anything. You can't lie to God -- it's ridiculous," Swaggart told The Associated Press. "If it's an insult, I certainly didn't think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology."

Yeah, yeah... New Orleans hooker-gate in 1988 and he had his INFAMOUS "I've sinned against you, My Lord," televised, weeping repentance. (video available at link)

[newzjunkey]

Not true. He sucks tens of thousands of dollars out of the pockets of well-meaning, well-intentioned and hard-working people who BELIEVE his charlatanism is genuine.</p>

This is money best used for their family, for their local economies and *not* to line this proselytizing, hate-filled, hooker-addicted, phony Jimmy Swaggart.

[newzjunkey]

I'm more ashamed of the leaders who sit in silence and don't challenge the sodomite agenda and in a lot of cases openly endorse it.

Advocating murder, when not even rising to the level (Swaggart would kill for just a *look*) of a case like the Matthew Shepherd case or the Jenny Jones talk show murder case, is DISPICABLE and inhuman. It spawns sympathy for homosexuals and undermines and embarrasses anyone who would otherwise identify themselves as an evangelical, Christian or adhering to a fundamentalist Biblical view regarding homosexuality. Swaggart, a public face of Christian fundamentalism, helps underscore the depiction of such people as radical, violent and bordering on domestic terrorists wrapping themselves in a cloak of religious, Christian rather than Islamic, rhetoric.

[JesseHousman]

How many homosexuals, seeking young boys, have raped and even murdered them? When we consider the gruesome homosexual serial killers and their tallies it makes one shudder!

Jeffrey Dahmer and J. W. Gacey come to mind, but there is a slew of others. Facts and statistics show that most serial killings are committed by homosexuals.