Rev. Rick Scarborough has made a dramatic pledge in his fight against the legalization of gay marriage by promising to set himself on fire if it becomes law, which it died on June 25.
Scarborough has indicated that attempts to legalize gay marriage are all part of a plot by Satan, saying that, “We now have a race of humans that don’t want to acknowledge that there’s a God.”
Fears that Christianity will eventually be outlawed are also a part of Scarborough’t criticisms, comparing his fight with that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s against the Nazis. Bonhoeffer was eventually martyred when he refused to capitulate to the demands of the Nazis.
Offering dramatic ways to get their message out, Scarborough suggested that pastors and other leaders of his movement stand in front of business owners who are perceived as being forced to go against their own religious beliefs. “Shoot me first,” was Scarborough’s suggestion of what to say to the alleged crowds demanding change.
Another tact Scarborough has suggested is outright revolution, comparing the leader of this would-be group to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Scarborough’s criticism has found some unity in other corners of the country. For example, Stephen Anderson, a pastor in Tempe, Arizona, goes even farther in showing how to stop the spread of AIDS: simply killing all gay people.
That strategy is based on Anderson’s belief that AIDS is disease suffered only by gays, which flies in the face of statistics showing that heterosexuals have also been affected.