As Brian noted today, Hillary Clinton’s comments over the weekend about the “deplorables” who support Donald Trump have resulted in some deliciously ironic criticism from Trump and some of his supporters. Among the Trump supporters slamming Clinton was Robert Jeffress, a pastor with a long record of anti-gay, anti-Mormon and anti-Catholic rhetoric, who accused Clinton of “hate speech” and “intolerance.”
“I tell you, it reveals the hypocrisy of liberalism, and that is liberals who cry loudest for tolerance are usually the most intolerant people in the world when it comes to ideas with which they disagree,” Jeffress told conservative radio host Mike Gallagher today. “I mean, think about it, according to Clinton you’re a racist if you believe in secure borders, you’re xenophobic if you believe people ought to only be in this country legally and you’re homophobic if you believe in traditional marriage. The fact is, Hillary Clinton is exhibit A of intolerance and her comments Friday were nothing but hate speech.”
Jeffress himself, of course, is a model of tolerance:
Jeffress made waves in the last presidential election when, after endorsing Rick Perry, he told Christians that they shouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney because of his Mormon faith, which wasn’t too surprising since he once blasted Mormonism as “a cult” from “the pit of hell.”
Jeffress has similarly stated that Satan created Roman Catholicism, declared that Jews, Mormons, Muslims and gay people are all destined for hell and maintained that President Obama “is paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist.”
No fan of the gay community, Jeffress believes that gays and lesbians are “perverse” people who are either pedophiles or likely to abuse children in the future; compared homosexuality to bestiality and called it “a miserable lifestyle”; accused gay people of using “brainwashing techniques” to have homosexuality “crammed down our throats”; said that gay people “are engaged in the most detestable, unclean, abominable acts you can imagine”; predicted that the gay rights movement “will pave the way for that future world dictator, the Antichrist”; and labeled homosexuality a “filthy practice” that will lead to the “ implosion of our country.”