TEXAS: Southern Poverty Law Center Adds Two Churches To Hate Groups List

Via John Wright at the Texas Observer:

Pastor Donnie Romero has gone viral. “I’m going to explain to you why God wants these people to be put to death,” Romero declared during a sermon in December. “The word of God is very clear that God is against the sodomites, that they’re filthy, and it says they’re an abomination to God.” A clip from Romero’s sermon, posted on YouTube by Right Wing Watch, has been viewed more than 28,000 times. It also helped land Romero’s Fort Worth church on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual list of active anti-LGBT hate groups.

“Their gay-bashing is intense,” said Heidi Beirich, director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project. “Stedfast Baptist Church is very crude in its hatred. That’s not a complicated thing to explain why we put them on the hate list.” Romero didn’t return a phone call seeking comment. Stedfast Baptist is one of two Texas-based organizations added to the list this year. The other is Probe Ministries of Plano. They joined longstanding designee Tom Brown Ministries of El Paso. The increase in Texas contributed to a 10 percent jump in anti-LGBT hate groups nationwide, from 40 to 44.

Also added to the list are Pastor James David Manning’s ATLAH World Missionary Church in Harlem (shocker!) and the Jewish Political Action Committee. See the SPLC’s current list of anti-LGBT hate groups.