A Colorado pastor is warning Taylor Swift that “God will cut her down” for embracing the LGBTQ community.
Swift’s new video, “You Need to Calm Down,” includes a shout-out to inclusion and encourages viewers to a sign a Change.org petition supporting the Equality Act. And while some queer fans are complaining pop princess is just giving lip service to the gays, right-wing radio host Kevin Swanson is angry she’s giving them any kind of service.
On his Generations” radio showyesterday, Swanson called Swift a “fool.”
“Taylor Swift, most popular female singer in America today, released a song promoting the Leviticus 16 list of abominations, pretty much,” he said, citing a Bible passage about animal sacrifices. “‘You Need to Calm Down’ is the name of the song, and she’s apparently telling God to calm down about all of his ethical concerns. I don’t think it’s going to be effective, but that’s what she’s doing.”
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Swanson added that the Equality Act, which passed the House and awaits voting in the Senate, is “intended to persecute Christians if they don’t want to celebrate homosexual, heathen rites and rituals.”
“So what do we say to Taylor Swift and her new concoction, ‘You Need to Calm Down’?” Swanson asked his listeners. “I think we just tell Taylor Swift that she’s a fool. That she doesn’t fear God, and sooner or later, God will cut her down.”
He went on to call the multiple Grammy winner “a sinner in desperate need of a savior.”
Since being uploaded to YouTube four days ago, “You Need to Calm Down” has been viewed nearly 45 million times.
Swanson, pastor of Reformation Church in Elizabeth, Colorado, is notorious for his outrageous attacks on homosexuality. After the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality in 2015, he compared same-sex marriage to “marriage to pets.”
“The church shouldn’t recognize… when a man comes in with his pet sheep or his pet dog and says, ‘This is my wife,'” he told his listeners. “The church says, “No, that’s illegitimate. That is treason against Almighty God.”
At a religious liberty liberty conference that same year, Swanson defended executing gay people.
“There are instances in which both the Old and New Testament speak to the matter with unbelievable clarity. You know what that sin is—it’s the sin of homosexuality. In fact, in Romans 1, Paul affirms that this particular sin is worthy of death. The Old and New Testament, I believe, both speak with authority and we ought to receive it.”
At the same convention, attended by then-presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal, Swanson claimed he’d don sackcloth and ashes if one of his sons married another man.
“I’d sit in cow manure and I’d spread it all over my body,” he told attendees. “That is what I would do and I’m not kidding, I’m not laughing… I’m grieving, I’m mourning, I’m pointing out the problem.”
*story by Newsweek