NOM Invites “Gays Are Worthy Of Death” Speaker To Student Summer Conference… Again

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has started to announce the lineup of speakers for its annual “It Takes A Family” (ITAF) summer conference, and the roster already includes a theologian who’s written that gay people are “worthy of death.”

NOM’s Ruth Institute announced this week that Robert Gagnon, an associate professor of the New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, would be speaking at the 2013 ITAF conference:

Gagnon has been a speaker at every ITAF since the conference’s inception in 2009. The weekend-long event is allegedly aimed at preparing college students to defend “natural marriage” on their campuses by exposing them to a variety of prominent anti-gay speakers and activists.

Last year, an undercover Equality Matters investigation revealed that attendees at NOM’s ITAF conference were being exposed to anti-gay misinformation and propaganda. Gagnon was one of the chief purveyors of homophobic commentary, leading several talks on why Jesus would have condemned homosexuality.

NOM’s ITAF conference also sold Gagnon’s book, “The Bible And Homosexual Practice,” in which Gagnon states that gay people are “worthy of death”:

Participation in same-sex intercourse is partly its own payback for turning away from the one true God, since Paul regards such behavior as itself unclean, a dishonoring of one's own body, and a self-shaming act of obscene indecency. At the same time, it is evidence of God's future judgment, since the participants have no excuse for not knowing that those who do such things are worthy of death. [Page 337, emphasis added]

Gagnon’s career of anti-LGBT extremism doesn’t end with condemning gay people to death – he’s also:

• Called homosexuality “repulsively contrary to nature”
• Advocated for treating homosexuality like a mental disorder
• Linked homosexuality to pedophilia
• Advocated strongly for the practice of “ex-gay” therapy

His history of extreme anti-gay comments has not disqualified him from being a part of the Ruth Institute’s “Circle of Experts.” And, unfortunately, students attending NOM’s ITAF conference this summer will witness his expertise first hand.

Previously:

NOM Scrambles To Distance Itself From “Worthy Of Death” Rhetoric

EXCLUSIVE: Undercover At NOM's Anti-Gay Student Conference

Meet Robert Gagnon, The Anti-Gay Professor Speaking At NOM’s ITAF Conference