title:  Conservative ‘Christian’ Preacher Wants Government To Execute Adulterers
text: This guy just wants everyone dead.Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona just does not know how to shut his mouth.The day after the Orlando mass shooting, Anderson praised the 49 murders and called upon the government to execute all gay people across the nation.Just this past Sunday, Anderson repeated his call to execute gay people but added a call to purge any Christians who supports the LGBT community.And now Anderson is calling for reinstating the death penalty against anyone who is tried and convicted of committing adultery. Adultery is not a crime in the United States, but Anderson called for punishing those who commit it with death in a written manifesto on his blog last week. When someone says that homosexuality is worthy of death according to the Bible, people inevitably will bring up other sins that were also punishable by death in the Old Testament,  he wrote.  They think they are somehow catching us in hypocrisy, but the truth is, Bible believing Christians DO agree with those other Old Testament penalties as well we just need to realize that God s laws were the law of the land in those days. Today, adultery is not punishable by law in the United States, but it should be. Just as he did when he called for executing gay people, Anderson laid out his vision of a  righteous government,  presumably made up of conservative  Christians  who will shred the Constitution and replace it with the Bible, and said such a government would make adultery a capital crime worthy of arrest and death if convicted by what one can only imagine would be a kangaroo court. This, Anderson says, is the way he would prevent adultery and divorce.Yes, a righteous government would implement the death penalty for those tried and convicted of adultery. We all know normal people who have unfortunately committed this grievous sin, and of course we wouldn t want them to die for it. If we were to somehow vote in a law making adultery illegal, it would not be retroactive it would be the law going forward, and adultery rates would plummet and so would divorce rates. Think about it, though. Do you really think as many people commit adultery in societies where it is punishable by death? Of course not so you can relax about your Aunt Trudy who cheated on her husband thirty years ago. If Aunt Trudy had lived in a society that enforced the death penalty for adultery, chances are she would never have committed that sin in the first place.Indeed, other nations in the world do, in fact, punish adulterers with death. There s only one problem.As it turns out, punishing adultery by execution is something that occurs today mostly under Islamic law. Conservatives like Anderson would refer to this as  Sharia law.  And usually it overwhelmingly punishes women, especially women who have been raped.According to The Week,The UN has issued numerous calls to governments to repeal laws that criminalise adultery, arguing that they are predominantly used to discriminate against women.  Provisions in penal codes often do not treat women and men equally and establish harsher rules and sanctions for women,  writes human rights expert Frances Raday.Countries governed by Islamic law, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Somalia, all strictly prohibit  zina , or  fornication outside marriage . Prosecutions are common and punishment can include fines, arbitrary detention, imprisonment, flogging and in extreme cases, the death penalty. Women are overwhelmingly targeted.Human rights organisations argue that in several Muslim nations, adultery laws are often used against women who have been raped. Under such legislation, the burden of proof is on the woman to provide evidence that she was raped, or be prosecuted for adultery.In short, what Anderson is proposing is a barbaric practice that is mostly practiced in countries that are governed by some form of Sharia law and is used primarily to punish women.Basically, he is calling for the United States to be governed by Christian Sharia law. You know, the same Sharia law that conservatives freak out about and pass laws against.Anderson concluded his  sermon  by claiming that the death penalty deters crime and shrugged at the notion that people don t want their loved ones executed just because they had an extramarital affair.In countries where adultery is still a capital crime, it s not an everyday occurrence and usually ends up in the news. Just as capital punishment is a strong deterrent against murder, it has the same effect on other crimes.Telling us that we would not want people we know and care about to be put to death is a straw man argument. We don t want our friends and family to be convicted of murder either, but they probably won t kill anyone, so we don t worry about it. When the children of Israel committed adultery, they knew the risk going in.However, it s worth noting that multiple studies by researchers have been UNABLE to prove that the death penalty is a deterrent to crimeThe bottom line is that is that Anderson is a maniac who wants to bathe America in blood in order to create what he considers the perfect Christian utopia. Millions upon millions of Americans would be murdered in this endeavor if Anderson had his way, and that is precisely why conservative  Christians  can never be allowed to have power in our government.Featured Image: Screenshot