Andrea SannaThe usual “habit” of homophobes
We are in the state of North Carolina, in Melbane, and more precisely in a Walmart.
Jeffrey Smith (67 years old) goes to Walmart on a Monday morning and calmly approaches another customer and harasses him by touching him through his clothes. After the “touching”, the “running” and then the arrest by police in the woods behind a Sheetz gas station.
Jeffrey Smith was booked into the Alamance County Detention Center and then released on $3,000 bail.
It would be a normal episode, except that Jeffrey Smith is a pastor of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). An openly anti-LGBTQIA denomination with over 600 churches and around 145,000 members.
In a document on human sexuality – published by the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in 2017 – marriage is defined as only between a man and a woman. And it also states that they will continue to reject, condone and participate in any form of sexual practice that is: “homosexual behaviour”, “homosexual unions” and “gender reassignment”, in addition, of course, to “pornography”, “sexual abuse”, “divorce”, “remarriage” and also “sexual lust”.
Rules that may not apply to their members, given the arrest of Pastor Jeffrey Smith.
