OTTAWA – “If one [a man] ever looks at me like that [with romantic affection], I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died,” televangelist Jimmy Swaggart said on OMNI.1 last fall.
The comment, of course, breaches of Broadcast Code of Ethics, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council said today. The CBSC didn’t comment, however, on how the comment also breaches a couple of biblical codes, otherwise known as commandments… (Swaggart, caught more than once with a prostitute in the 1980s, is no stranger to bending certain rules, however.)
In his so-called sermon on September 12th, Swaggart dealt principally with a young drug addict and segued briefly to the subject of same-sex marriage. He spoke against non-heterosexual marriage and complained about politicians who dance around the issue, before threatening to kill any gay men who found him to be a hottie.
Swaggart followed that statement with a remark that the undecided politicians and law-makers “all oughta have to marry a pig and live with him forever.”
The Panel noted that OMNI.1 was entitled to broadcast Swaggart’s views against same-sex marriage and his criticism of law-makers who fail to take a stand on the issue. Advocating killing, similar to another decision rendered today, is a consistent no-no, however.
“The negativity was so visceral that Swaggart asserted that, despite his own religiosity, he would feel justified in killing the man and in lying to his God that the victim had simply died,” noted the panel.
OMNI.1 was not required to announce the CBSC’s finding on-air because the station had already rightly issued an on-air apology shortly after the broadcast.
