Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki has defended saying that gays, sinners and murders are responsible for earthquakes, saying he actually meant anybody indulging in illicit sexual behaviour, adultery, child abuse and more.
"It's about adultery, morality, it's about any type of extra-sexual behaviour," Tamaki has told Willie Jackson in an interview on RadioLive.
Quoting the Old Testament in a Destiny Church sermon on Sunday, before Monday morning's 7.8 magnitude quake struck, killing two and leaving thousands stranded, Tamaki said "sexual perversion" and "homosexuality" was to blame for natural disasters.
Those comments were called just "plain loopy" by a rainbow community advocate, while New Zealand's human rights commissioner Richard Tankersley branded them "disgusting."
"It's crazy stuff," said Lexie Matheson, who was this year made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to the performing arts, education and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) rights.
Tamaki has refused to apologise to anyone and said he did plenty of good in the community and should not be judged as a monster.
He blamed the media for not giving him a right of reply, despite turning down the New Zealand Herald earlier when he was asked to defend the Sunday morning sermon.
Tamaki said since news of his sermon broke he and his family had received death threats and threats to burn down Destiny Church.
He said it was important for people to remember this was God's view, not his.
Meanwhile a petition on Change.org to have Destiny Church's tax status revoked has attracted 22,000 signatures.
Related Stories
Comments
Too many people pay lip service to freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Many people only want freedom of religion and freedom of speech if they agree. Attempting to shut down churches like Tamaki's is no different to what ISIS is doing in Syria. We don't need to go down the same road in New Zealand.
Freedom of speech is overrated. Tamaki's "religion" motivates thousands of poor and superstitious people to hate others, and give Tamaki money. Does society needs protection from criminals more than criminals need protection by society? Should our rights to a peaceful existence be sacrificed just to allow others the right to preach hatred against us? I believe our freedom of speech should not protect bullies and confidence tricksters to bully the vulnerable.
A Beacon of Nonsense. Amazing how often our personal views align with Gods view.
Tamaki is irrelevant to any serious discussion on science with views that are more aligned with superstition .