人兽性交

Romero came to widespread media attention in 2016 when he said that God should 鈥渇inish the job鈥� and kill the survivors of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a place that catered primarily to LGBT clientele. 聽Romero posted after the attack, in which 49 people were gunned down, he said, 鈥淭hese 50 sodomites were all perverts and pedophiles and they are the scum of the earth and the earth is a little better place now.鈥� YouTube 聽for violating its policy on hate speech.

In , Romero claimed he wasn鈥檛 going to let 鈥渄irty f------鈥� into his church and said they want to 鈥渟natch your children鈥� to 鈥渉urt and rape them.鈥� He also said that LGBT people should be put to death because the Bible says they鈥檙e filthy.

Romero resigned from the congregation , saying he had 鈥渘ot been ruling his house well鈥� and had been a 鈥渢errible husband and father.鈥� He said he and his family planned to stay on as members of the church and then apologized for the hurt 鈥渢his may cause people.鈥� He did not specifically name what he had done.

Following Romero鈥檚 statement, virulently anti-LGBT and antisemitic pastor聽Steven Anderson, of anti-LGBT hate group Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, took to the pulpit to field questions from the congregation and proposed Shelley as a potential replacement. He also did not discuss what Romero had done.

That information came out in a separate 聽on YouTube by Anderson. 鈥淏asically,鈥� Anderson said, 鈥渢he major sin was being with prostitutes. And then there were also marijuana and gambling, that were also discovered.鈥�

Anderson plays a key role in the middle of the Stedfast maelstrom. He is an origin point for both Romero鈥檚 Stedfast and Shelley鈥檚 Pure Words via a loose-knit network that Anderson helped construct called the 鈥淣ew IFB movement.鈥� IFB refers to 鈥淚ndependent Fundamentalist Baptist鈥� churches, an older movement founded in the 1940s to reclaim the fundamentalism of the 1920s, , chair of the history department at Messiah College.

The 鈥淣ew IFB movement鈥� is, , 鈥渁 revival of what the old IFB once represented.鈥� Each nondenominational church associated with the movement is independent. The website lists 29 churches as New IFB (all three Stedfast churches are listed, along with Pure Words and two Faithful Word churches), and it appears to have gone public recently. The site鈥檚 newsletters date back to November 2018.

Romero is a former member of Anderson鈥檚 congregation. He left with Anderson鈥檚 blessing in 2014 to start Stedfast in Fort Worth. Anderson ordained Romero, and traveled to Fort Worth this past week to address the Stedfast congregation and help guide them during the crisis.

Shelley is also a former member of Anderson鈥檚 congregation. Anderson 聽to start Pure Words in Houston. Like Anderson and Romero, Shelley is also known for anti-LGBT statements. Part of a YouTube sermon uploaded Oct. 17, 2018 by Pure Words Church is titled 鈥淲hy you should never hire a homo.鈥� In it, Shelley said,

Look, you turn on the TV, what do you see? F---. You turn on, you know, the internet, you get on YouTube, f---. You turn on any kind of news channel, there鈥檚 [sic] crammin鈥� f---聽down your throat. You go to the public school, what do they want to do, they want to push the f--聽agenda down your throat, you look in the newspaper, they want to push the f--聽agenda down your throat. You go to the store today, there鈥檚 f---聽everywhere, it鈥檚 so disgusting, it makes me want to vomit, they keep pushing the f--聽agenda, the f--聽agenda, just coming down your throat and you say how am I gonna fight it? How am I gonna fight it? The word of God. That鈥檚 what鈥檚 gonna fight it.

Photo illustration by 人兽性交