As we reported yesterday, right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson used his most recent Sunday sermon to decry the rainbow flag as “an accursed thing” and rant that U.S. embassies that are flying them in honor of Pride Month are shaking their fists in the face of God. Jackson followed that up by dedicating nearly his entire "The Awakening" radio program on Monday to the same issue, declaring that "the rainbow flag is no different than the Confederate flag" and proclaiming that "we need to burn every rainbow flag in this nation."
"I have a major problem with this," said Jackson, who was the Republican Party nominee for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2013 and unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2018. "I don't want the gay flag being flown at our embassies any more than I want the Confederate flag being flown at our embassies. And there is a very simple reason: It does not represent the United States of America ... As far as I am concerned, the rainbow flag is no different than the Confederate flag. That's right, I said it and I mean it. The rainbow flag is no different than the Confederate flag in that sense. It is a flag that represents the interests of a special group and their own interests, not the interests of our country."
"To me, it's idiotic, it's stupid," he continued. "The only reason why it's done is because these homosexual activists and radicals have so intimidated people throughout the culture, throughout the government, throughout the society that everybody thinks you've got to kowtow to them."
"Flying some other flag to compete with the American flag is an insult because I have no relationship to that flag," Jackson said. "Just as I have no relationship to the Confederate flag, I have no relationship to the rainbow flag ... Don't put it on public property because public property belongs to all of us and all of us aren't down with that! In fact, most of us aren't."
"The idea that a man should be sexually attracted to another man is a lie, or that a woman should be attracted sexually to another woman is a lie," Jackson concluded with disgust. "We need to burn every rainbow flag in this nation. Not we, but the LGBTQ community needs to burn it and renounce that mess and say, 'Lord, forgive us for our sin and rebellion against you and bring us to the cross.'"
