The Verity Baptist Church has been evicted in a sense from a California business park after pastor Roger Jimenez's widely watched Internet rant on the Orlando killings. Move out now, the church was told by the landlord, and you won't be penalized for breaking the lease eight months early.
In a video that is no longer on YouTube, Jimenez said in a Sunday sermon on the day of the June 12 Orlando Pulse gay nightclub killings that shooter Omar Mateen performed a service, reported
The Daily Beast.
On Sunday,
KCRA-TV in Sacramento reported, at least 1,000 people protested Jimenez at the business park. The crowd chanted "shame on you" and "love conquers hate" during the rally.
"The lesbian gay transgender bisexual community is going to stand together," protest organizer John Hayden told KCRA-TV. "We are standing together right now in solidarity to negate a message that the preacher is sending that all gay and lesbian people need to be killed."
Harsch Investment Properties, which runs the Northgate Business Park the church is located in, said in a statement while it could not legally make the church move because of its lease, added that the church would not be penalized if it left the park early, according to the
Sacramento Bee.
"We communicated our views to Verity Baptist Church, and while their lease does not expire until March 31, 2017, we have asked them to consider moving out of our business park, and we would immediately cancel their lease without any penalty to them."
In his sermon, Jimenez asked:
"Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?" according to The Daily Beast. "Um – no – I think that's great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida is a little safer tonight."
Jimenez added, according to the website, that he believed gays should face a firing squad.
"If we lived in a righteous government, they should round them all up and put them up against a firing wall, and blow their brains out," Jimenez said, per The Daily Beast.
Harsch Investment said in its statement that the pastor crossed the line in advocating the "taking of innocent live," said the Sacramento Bee.
"We have many places of worship and other religious organizations in the properties we manage. Like all our tenants, their occupancy rights are protected in their leases, but we will not tolerate tenants who advocate hatred and the taking of innocent lives."