Anti-Gay Pastor Billy Graham Gets a Statue in the U.S. Capitol
Wilmington Massacre, a bloody revolt that saw dozens of Black people killed.Members of the state’s congressional delegation urged replacing the avowed segregationist Aycock with a statue of North Carolina-based Baptist minister Graham instead.Over the course of his career, Graham, who died in 2018 at the age of 99, served as a spiritual adviser to foreign leaders and various politicians, including 12 sitting presidents.Like his anti-LGBTQ son, Franklin, the elder Graham was known for his staunch religiously conservative beliefs. While he was less vitriolic than his evangelical contemporaries, he still perpetually advocated that homosexuality was a horrible sin that only could be “cured” by re-dedicating oneself to following Christ.In 1993, he appallingly suggested that AIDS was a punishment from God for homosexuality.