Fox News contributor and First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress told his congregation that the recent marriage equality ruling was “the greatest, most historic, landmark blunder in the history of the United States Supreme Court.”
Jeffress made his remarks during his June 28 Sunday prayer service, as reported by Dallas' KTVT and the Dallas Observer. Several conservative pundits have had unhinged reactions to the June 26 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which found that states must recognize same-sex marriages.
Los Angeles Times Supreme Court reporter David G. Savage wrote in January 2009 that when it comes to determining the worst Supreme Court decisions, “Historians and court scholars agree on a pair of 19th century opinions”:
Historians and court scholars agree on a pair of 19th century opinions: Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 ruling that upheld slavery even in the free states, and Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which condoned segregation as “separate but equal.”
The World War II decision Korematsu v. United States (1944) is usually cited as well. There the court upheld the detention of more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans.
Jeffress also compared the Supreme Court's marriage decision to Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews. He told the Christian Post in a June 26 interview: “I think today's decision is just one more step in the marginalization of conservative Christians. I made this argument and have been ridiculed for doing so, but I think it is very legitimate. The Nazis did not take the Jews to the crematoriums immediately ... The German people would not have put up with that. Instead, the Nazis begin to marginalize the Jewish people, make them objects of contempt and ridicule. Once they changed the public opinion about the Jewish people, then they engaged the [Holocaust].”
Fox News employs Jeffress as a contributor despite his long and controversial history of bigotry against LGBT individuals and members of certain religions.
During the 2012 campaign, Jeffress created controversy when he denounced Mitt Romney's Mormon faith as a “cult.” Then-Romney challenger Rick Perry was forced to distance himself from Jeffress, who had introduced Perry at an event.
He's said that “religions like Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism ... lead people to an eternity of separation from God in Hell.” He's called Islam an “evil, evil, religion,” referred to Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as “false religions,” and said Catholicism is a “counterfeit religion” that rose from a “cult-like, pagan religion.” Jeffress said of Judaism: “Judaism, you can't be saved being a Jew, you know who said that by the way, the three greatest Jews in the New Testament, Peter, Paul, and Jesus Christ, they all said Judaism won't do it, it's faith in Jesus Christ.”
Video of Jeffress' June 28 remarks is below: