Anti-LGBTQ+ Texas pastor Joel Webbon, known for spreading extreme anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, has urged Christians to use more slurs when referring to gay men, claiming that doing so is “appropriate” and “not sinful.”
Webbon, founder of Right Response Ministries and senior pastor of Covenant Bible Church in Austin, has a long record of inflammatory statements. Among them: the false claim that 17% of gay men eat faeces, that women should not have the right to vote, and that Dr Martin Luther King Jr is in hell.
In a recent episode of his podcast — clipped and posted by Right Wing Watch — Webbon escalated his attacks on LGBTQ+ people, describing homosexuality as:
“Degenerate… bad for the populace… bad for society… incredibly harmful.”
He then falsely accused LGBTQ+ people of being predatory towards children — a longstanding, debunked trope used to fuel anti-LGBTQ+ hostility.
“We’ve seen a full court press against our own children as the sacrificial lamb… It’s wicked. It’s predatory.”
Webbon went on to say Christians should refer to gay men using homophobic slurs:
“It’s perverse, it’s wicked, it’s fa***try, and it needs to stop.”
“Yes, you can use that word on occasion… ‘We’re not going to tolerate fa***try with our children.’”
Although he warned that the term shouldn’t be “trivialised,” he insisted:
“I don’t think it’s a sin to say ‘fa***t’ in its proper context.”
Misrepresenting a satirical LGBTQ+ video
Webbon also revived a mischaracterised 2021 video by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, in which members jokingly sang that they would “convert your children” — referring to teaching acceptance and tolerance. At the time, conservatives falsely claimed the video promoted grooming.
Webbon now claims:
“No, stop it, fa***ts. No, you will not convert my children. You’re degenerates, you’re predators… Back into the shadows.”
A society “with only one group allowed to exist”?
Webbon concluded by arguing that society must choose between LGBTQ+ people and Christians — framing coexistence as impossible.
“Every society will have a closet… either Christian children will be hiding… or you will have sexual degenerates in that closet.”
“The sexual degenerates… should be in the closet, not Christian families.”
His church’s website states it opposes “the WOKE NONSENSE of the culture and CIVIL TYRANNY of the state,” reflecting the church’s far‑right political stance.
