Indiana’s Republican lieutenant governor appears interested in attending a service at a hate church that called for murdering LGBTQ+ people.

Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith (R) shared a post from Indianapolis Sure Foundation Baptist Church leader Justin Zhong inviting him to a church service, appearing to approve of the invitation. The repost has since been deleted.

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The protestors held signs that said, “Trans rights are human rights,” “Stop the hate,” and “True Christians preach love.”

The Sure Foundation Baptist Church made national headlines recently when lay pastor Stephen Falco used slurs and called for murdering gay people during a Men’s Preaching Night.

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“There’s nothing good to be proud about being a f*g. You ought to blow yourself in the head in the back of the head. You’re so disgusting,” he said. “Why do I hate sodomites, why do I hate f*gs? Because they attack children, they’re coming after your children, they are attacking them in schools today, and not only schools in public places, and they’re proud about it!”

The sermon was posted to YouTube, which removed the video, but the church’s leadership defended the sermon.

“The Bible is crystal clear that sodomites – homosexuals – deserve the death penalty carried out by a government that actually cares about the law of God,” Zhong said at the time. “I will not apologize for preaching the Word of God. I will not apologize for stating facts. I will not negotiate with terrorists, among whom the LGBTHIV crowd is full of domestic terrorists.”

Over the past several years, several Baptist churches – part of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement, or New IFB – have gotten attention online for their extreme and violent anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric during sermons, which they often post to social media. The pastors – all male, the movement does not believe women should be in positions of authority – have called for killing gay people or said that they hope all gay people die, usually using slurs and parroting anti-LGBTQ+ stereotypes and urban legends, like that teachers are teaching kids to be gay.

Beckwith himself has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ extremism. He said in June that LGBTQ+ people in “ancient history and all the way up to today” have a “demonic spirit” associated with the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar.

That same month, he sent an “alert” to his followers on social media that Pride Month is a sign of “Pagan Conquest” that will bring “ritual child sacrifice – with glitter and hashtags.” He claimed that Pride Month is part of a “state-corporate-pagan alliance to reprogram society” that forced people to listen to “Harvey Milk sermons” and support “government-sanctioned grooming.” Grooming is a word for tactics used by child molesters.

When running for lieutenant governor in 2024, he referred to pro-choice voters as “demonic.”

He said that Democrats had the “Jezebel spirit” and “a boldness for immorality” during a podcast interview last year. The host of the podcast said that the Jezebel spirit was “ultimately about control, which is the spirit of witchcraft, as we know. That’s what Jezebel operated in.” Beckwith nodded along.

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