Yup, you read that headline right. In an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point this morning, notoriously anti-gay televangelist Joel Osteen admitted to host Soledad O’Brien and panelist Richard Socarides that he never made a conscious decision to be straight, then attempted to defend his church’s belief that homosexuality is a “sin” and a choice. Check out the video and partial transcript from Adam Peck at ThinkProgress:
O’BRIEN: You make it clear that you think that homosexuality is a sin…
OSTEEN: When I read the scripture, that’s what I believe; that the scripture condemns it or says it’s a sin. But it also says that you know, lying is, and that being prideful is…
O’BRIEN: Right, so then you shouldn’t lie. But for people who are gay, you’re saying so then you shouldn’t be gay?
OSTEEN: Well, I think that’s the big debate. The scripture says you’ve got to work out your own salvation…
SOCARIDES: Do you think you can choose to be gay or not gay? You think you choose to be straight?
OSTEEN: I know I have not chosen to be straight, I feel like that’s who I am…
HOST: Well so how can I choose to be gay?
Osteen, who as Peck points out has a long history of falsely claiming that LGBT people can “pray away the gay,” is perhaps most infamous for saying that homosexuality is not “God’s best.” On the contrary, I would contend that anti-gay preachers of the so-called “prosperity gospel” (you know, the whole “God wants you to be rich” thing) like Osteen are not Christianity’s best.
