VIDEO: Pastor’s Defender Proves It’s Hard To Defend Bigotry Without Sounding Like A Total Moron

Last week, Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina came out swinging against the homos, saying some of the craziest shit about gay people we’ve heard since the last time somebody said really crazy shit about gay people. Here’s a snippet:

“I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers but I couldn’t get it pass the Congress – build a great big large fence, 50 or a hundred mile long. Put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. And have that fence electrified so they can’t get out.

And you know what? In a few years they will die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce. If a man ever has a young’un, praise God he will be the first.”

Here’s the video of his entire rant:

This is one of those sensational stories I tend to ignore these days, bigotry so extreme and “out there” that taking it seriously almost seems pointless, like volunteering to debate Fred Phelps. But sometimes these incidents can provide insight into the mechanisms behind extremist bigotry simply by pushing said bigots into the spotlight and forcing them to defend their views. It’s unsurprising, then, that Stacey Pritchard, a Pastor Worely supporter who appeared on Anderson Cooper yesterday, is, essentially, a complete idiot who has no idea what she’s talking about.

Honestly I’m probably just as scared about the possibility of this woman reproducing as she is about the possibility of me or my girlfriend reproducing.

See for yourself:

If you wanna get involved in actions against this strange man, visit the Catawba Valley Against Hate facebook page for more information.

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3181 articles for us.

126 Comments

  1. *standing ovation for Anderson Cooper for not laughing derisively at the stupidity emanating from certain segments of the human populace*

    • Yes, I was dying just watching it! Kudos Anderson Cooper, kudos!!

      As humorous and ridiculous as this is, all I keep thinking is that this is an elections year. It is ignorant, stubborn, bigots like this that keep us from having rights!! Reason #1,000,001 to make sure you vote for Obama!

    • I agree that Anderson was amazing in that he never laughed considering how ignorant the brain washed church member was. I am wondering if, in addition to the charges for violating the tax exempt laws, if there can’t be charges brought for encouraging hate and hate crimes.

  2. This was like a clown car accident: sad and darkly hilarious all at once. (That simile worked right guys?? Ugh, I need to go to bed.)

        • I carried a flask around at the last Camp. Don’t see any reason to alter my M.O.

          • One of my Christmas presents this past year was a flask in a hollowed out book with “Holy Bible” stamped on the front…because as they said, “you like Jesus AND whiskey! It’s perfect!”

            Seems like A-Camp would be the perfect place to bust that out.

  5. Oh I see, so basically it’s our fault for misinterpreting his words….he did mean that, but he didnt, but her actually did, but yes there should be a fence…it’s all so clear now!

    Also, the idea of being in a fenced off area with a load of lesbians doesnt sound like the worst thing in the world to me…provided that there was a steady supply of booze, im sure we would all do our best and at least give reproduction a go by continuously trying, granted no one would get preggers, but that wouldnt stop us trying! Also, at least then we’d be fenced off from the bigoted idiots of the world, seems like a good idea to me!

    • You know, now that you mention it, it isn’t the worst idea in the world. It would be like all the lesbians going to A camp, and never leaving…. I could be down for that!

      • I can’t remember who, but I remember someone at camp saying, well, exactly this – that if the crazies rounded us all up, as long as we could bring alcohol we’d probably be okay with it. ;)

    • Yes, at first I was thinking “how horrible.” But then I reconsidered. There are worse places to be that with a bunch of other LGBT folks!

    • I know this guy is a wing nut and everyone is joking here. Want to point out that when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was taking off – in the 1980s, so in your or your parents’ lifetime – prominent conservatives seriously advocated internment camps for gay men and sometimes lesbians in the US. (They were more divided on camps for lesbians mostly because two women together was generally considered more insignificant than perverse – the fact that there was a negligible infection rate seemed almost secondary.)

      Important: they were advocating internment camps NOT quarantine protocols for public health reasons. Many politicians actively ignored policy recommendations bordering on pleas from their public health people. The internment camp conversation only slowed once it became clear early transmission was staying largely within second-class populations (gay men and IV drug users). Infection rates were allowed to spiral because damning teh gayz and teh userz was, in the short run, at least as important politically as public health.

      Ridiculous / unsubstantiated / illogical thinking is not inherently harmless. Willfully and woefully ignorant people are easily manipulated, especially in times of crisis when a lot of people are afraid (eg early days of HIV, post-9/11). And they get to vote and reproduce, too.

  6. Anderson Cooper completely exposed this woman’s idiocy. The hypocrisy and ignorance is apalling.

  7. I’m confused.
    I actually feel sorry for this woman. Maybe we should start a fund to educate her about full sentences, grammar, how to answer questions etc. Fight hate with love.
    Or maybe I just got brain damage from watching that.

  8. 1:47. The 1:47 mark. So convinced. So smug. So…”DUH, ANDERSON.” I’m dying. Uncontrollable giggles. Ohhhhh boy.

  9. Ha, Jokes on you Charlie! A secret tunnel is already being planned out. So go ahead and fence in Lesbians and Gay men. They’re still going to reproduce have a happy lil’ family.

  10. This is really funny until you realize that there are other people like her in this world and I’m related to most of them.

  11. I love her face every time AC talks:

    AC: logical, well reasoned deconstruction of the words she’s defending
    Bigot: **DOES NOT COMPUTE DOES NOT COMPUTE**

  12. HAHAH problem isn’t the ability of the gay people inside the fence not being able to reproduce, its the STRAIGHT PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF IT! Hate to bust his nuts, but fencing us all in won’t stop straight people from making us. BOOYAH.

  13. Guys I dunno if “This is a pastor that speaks the word of God,” there was no electricity back then.

  16. What makes me mad is that there were probably BEAUTIFUL QUEER KIDDIES in that church.

  17. “This is about the homosekshuals, and it’s wrong.” This sounds unfortunately like the beginning of Mean Girls. Can this woman bring back adorable red-haired LiLo too?

  18. If they put all queers, men and women, inside the same fenced area, I guarantee you, there will be babies.

    • Right? This woman obviously doesn’t understand the complexities of human sexuality (i.e. – a lot of people don’t identify as either gay/straight). That and she’s never seen that episode of L Word where Bette and Tina attempt a threesome to make a baby.

  19. Haha! He said a “100 or 50 mile long” fence. Um…I believe one needs a polygon to create an enclosed space. Clearly he overlooked some details when planning his gayschwitz concentration camp. We could just walk around it!

    • Those were my exact thoughts…how’s he going to turn the circle? But seriously, maybe he shouldn’t stop at gay people; he could round up all kinds of undesirables.

      The gay population would be quite concentrated in that camp.

  20. I love that the pastor doesn’t get that straight people make more gay people, so it doesn’t matter if “the gays” reproduce.

    • This. Where does he think we came from in the first place? Little gay storks dropping off bundles from Magical Rainbowland?

  21. I forsee an amazing society. Well built dwellings, awesome arts, vegan food aplenty, and super awesome lesbian drama.

    I want to go to there.

  22. My mother, when I told her about Pastor Worley’s sermon: Oh, Maddie, you can’t let stuff like that get to you. You’ve just gotta let that kind of talk roll right off.”

    My mother, immediately after seeing the video: WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE?! HOW CAN PEOPLE SAY THINGS LIKE THIS?!

  24. And on the third day, God created the Remington bolt-action rifle, so that Man could fight the dinosaurs.
    And the homosexuals.

  25. What a maroon (thank you, Bugs Bunny for the proper words).

    The point is always the same–bigots don’t know one bit of biology, and they love to pick and choose their Bible verses. Christians are supposed to follow Jesus and his teachings (love, tolerance, acceptance, forgiveness), and these nuts keep their noses in Leviticus. They must only read the 2 verses about homosexuality because if they’re reading the whole book, they must have problems sleeping. Only reading a couple of verses would explain their ignorance of the rest of that book’s content. Besides Numbers, Leviticus is the best cure for insomnia I’ve ever heard of or used. Maybe the U.S. tax code would be better, but only because it’s longer.

    According to this logic, we should put all the male adulterers behind one electric fence and the female ones behind another and wait for them to die out to stop adultery. Gah!!!

  26. The pastor made 0 sense. This woman makes even less sense. Did she even answer any of the questions?

  27. If these people think you need to keep gay men and gay women separated by fences in order to keep them from reproducing with each other, it would seem that they don’t really understand what “gay” means.

  28. She doesn’t understand logic/history and I feel a tiny bit sorry for the fool she made of herself.

  29. He forgot all about bisexuals obviously we could send them as secret agents to further our devious gay agenda.

    Also thank goodness Anderson took this all in stride and called her out on her bullcrap. She seemed genuinely confused that straight people will always produce more gays & lesbians.

      • Woops! I didn’t mean to reply under Samantha, although I did think about the bisexual aspect too.

        • I’m glad it made you laugh (I <3 making people laugh). It is awesomeness. I remember a lot of people being confused and wondering if that site was real because of the absurdity on there. It goes to show how good they are at parodying and mocking those specific people.

    • Both of them are probably among the people who believe that bisexuality either doesn’t exist or that bisexuals need to decide whether they’re really gay or lesbian.

  30. Is anyone else just profoundly sad that such flagrant stupidity is being given airtime at all? This argument defies all sense about sexuality and genetics and reproduction and morality and legality and like, geometry. There’s a war in Afghanistan. Egypt just had a free election, guys. Maybe we can understand that because gays in electric fences makes no sense to me.

    • Yeah, it’s very sad. Buuuut I think some sadistic part of me actually kind of enjoys seeing misinformed bigots make total asses of themselves on the teevee.

  31. Inside the fence sounds kind of like a big queer party. I hope the food they drop includes booze.

  32. NO WAIT I’VE GOT IT. Obviously, if gay people come from other gay people, it must be all those reformed gays out there having holy, hetero, BABY-MAKING sex. So the real solution is to stop trying to fix the gays and let us all die out naturally.

  34. When did being LGBTQ become something a parent had to carry on?

    *was the first thing I questioned about this video*

  35. Just when I thought I couldn’t love Anderson Cooper any more than I already do…

  36. I am utterly bewildered. I would literally have reacted the same way had snakes come out of that woman’s mouth and tied themselves into balloon-animal giraffe shapes. I didn’t need a mind-altering substance to think of that, either. That is just how bad listening to her and her slack-jawed pastor has damaged my imagination.

  38. “Put all the lesbians together behind a fence and they won’t ba able to reproduce.”

    …Uh, except for the fact that some lesbians have penises! There’s a spanner in the works.

    [Oh right, she thinks those women are men, doesn’t she?]

  39. Okay, am I the only one that is excited to see the “WWJPBEFALDO” (“Who Would Jesus Put Behind Electrified Fences And Let Die Off?”) bracelets?! The idea makes me laugh and laugh!

  40. Obviously this guy doesn’t know what he is talking about if he thinks a 50-100 miles fence is going to fit all of us.

  42. What? What? Thanks a lot for killing all my brain cells two weeks before my law exams. IF I FAIL I BLAME YOU YOU EVIL WOMAN.

    • There are still law schools that haven’t started finals yet? Awww! I was lucky enough to finish first year last Friday. Good luck! And when things got rough, checking out the calming manatee article on AS (and http://calmingmanatee.com itself) really helped me keep it cool!

      • Yep, if you go to law school in Australia like me! First year, I am jealous! I miss first year. I’m in fifth now and suffering badly (law here is an undergraduate degree). That manatee is soothing even as I wrangle with corporate law.

  43. that banner on the top right corner to sign a petition to defund planned parenthood is very confusing to me!!!!!!!!!

  45. Ashamed to admit this but the first thing I thought was how awesome it’d be – lesbians everywhere, free food from the sky, and most importantly, an electrified fence that keeps out bigots like these!!

    • Plus, you’d never again have to have this internal conversation: ‘Hey, she might be gay! Wait, is she gay? Yeah, look at her! Definitely! I’m gonna go and say Hi. But what if she isn’t gay? …. Nah! She definitely gay! Isn’t she?’

  46. Torn between laughing and crying and flat-out bewilderment. How is this real life? How is it that a major and not exactly famously conservative news network in the United States of American in 2012 is holding a calm, serious, straight-faced discussion of whether or not gay people should be locked up in concentration camps until they die, as if this were a legitimate and reasonable debate?

    • I know! I feel like this belonged on Colbert Report or another faux news show that only interviews people for the purpose mocking them. Even though Anderson Cooper did make this woman look foolish, it’s scary that CNN even kept up the guise of it being a serious debate.

  47. I refuse to watch either of those videos. I’ve decided I don’t need that kind of shit in my lives.

    But I’m glad you all had funny things to say about it!

  48. This woman is proof of the ramifications of allowing cousins to marry (just not gay cousins).

    • I know this isn’t the point, but please not another cousin-marrying and reproducing joke. As a queer girl whose parents are first cousins, it doesn’t make me feel any better to have one aspect of my identity denigrated to prop up another part.

  49. Okay, I can’t be the only one who couldn’t hold it in after he was talking about imagining kissing another man and then just stared into space for awhile and then ended it with “I love you guys”.

  50. I’m frustrated with Cooper for inviting this woman on his show. She’s SUCH an easy target. I’m guessing at things here, but, it’s likely that she’s not that educated, and not that financially privileged. If we assume that’s true, she’s quite likely a victim of class indoctrination. I’m sad for her, and I’m sad for us. This pastor was hurtful to our community and it feels like we need someone to mock in order to alleviate our pain. I wish Cooper had invited officials from the church (though I realized that it’s likely that they denied his invitation). This woman would was barely cohesive and she sounds quite like the fan base of the Tea Party. You know…angry folks who’ve been disenfranchised, the further been duped to ignore the facts and vote against their interest. Except with her, our community, we’re the devils in her life. So, her family’s falling apart? Her oldest can’t attend college? He husband is terribly ill and with no insurance to cover necessary expenses? Well, she’s got her pastor to reassure her that the sins of America rest on the shoulders of the queers. I mean, WHERE ELSE DOES THIS VENOM COME FROM? These folks, in that church, in many churches (though not all) are being spoon fed evil that’s badly packaged in the form of community solidarity. What the Fuck!?

  52. on what planet do these bigots think they are being christ-like? when i first heard about the holocaust-like and eugenics-like implications of this bigoted pastor’s wishes for gay people, i was was pretty fucking mad. but then i watched as anderson cooper exposed how uneducated, hateful, and JUST PLAIN STUPID these people are and i couldn’t help but laugh. i loved how her only response to being proven utterly wrong was to get angry and make even LESS sense as she continued trying to justify her ignorance. only two things worry me: 1.that one of these self-righteous homophobes might take that pastor’s words to heart and gay-bash someone and 2.that this church full of fools have the right to vote.

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