#2631: Roland & Lennell Caldwell

Roland Caldwell is a pastor affiliated with the fundamentalist Burnette Baptist Church (also a TV channel). Lennell Caldwell is too, and we assume (but can’t verify) that there is some relationship between them – Lennell Caldwell apparently enjoys the position of “Apostle” with the church (as well as being a pastor at First Baptist World Changer International.) Neither of them likes gay people.

 

So the Caldwells, joining forces with e.g. Stacy Swimp, reacted stupidly to the 2014 Michigan ruling that the state’s denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples was unconstitutional, and claimed that civil rights should not be upheld by the courts if doing so conflicts with the opinions of the majority – where “majority” doesn’t mean majority, of course (if it did, there would be no criticism of the ruling), but in line with what the Caldwells happen to think. As for proponents of same-sex marriage, Roland Caldwell made his position clear: “You are my enemy! Anybody that’s an enemy of God is an enemy of mine. And now the fight is on!”

 

Roland and Lennell were apparently behind organizing pastors and churches in Michigan to protest the aforementioned ruling, the goal apparently being to “send a message that there are yet still pastors in the city and state who stand by both our Michigan Constitution and our Judeo Christian values,” according to Lennell Caldwell. (Of course, they did explicitly not stand by the Constitution. Details.)

 

Diagnosis: So yeah, there are a lot of these around, but although the Caldwells are hardly major forces in the fundie deranged wingnut movement, they’re incredibly silly and hateful, and worth mentioning just in case anyone should ever run into them.