Pastor Backs Out of Obama Inauguration Over Previous Anti-Gay Comments

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Rev. Louie Giglio, who had been announced as the pastor to give the benediction at the presidential inauguration, has now pulled himself out of the ceremony, after criticism of his previous anti-gay comments and actions, sources confirmed to ABC News.

Giglio, who is now Pastor at Passion City Church in Georgia and his role at Obama's second inauguration was first announced Tuesday. But the liberal website Thinkprogress reported Wednesday on audio of Giglioi delivering a sermon in the mid-1990s in which he said homosexuality is a sin and advocated gay "recovery."

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Here is one passage from Giglio's mid-90s sermon uncovered by Thinkprogress:

"We must lovingly but firmly respond to the aggressive agenda of not all, but of many in the homosexual community. … Underneath this issue is a very powerful and aggressive moment. That movement is not a benevolent movement, it is a movement to seize by any means necessary the feeling and the mood of the day, to the point where the homosexual lifestyle becomes accepted as a norm in our society and is given full standing as any other lifestyle, as it relates to family. "