Boxer Manny Pacquiao Blasts Obama Over Same Sex Marriage,Gays Should Be Put To Death

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61. Manny Pacquiao doesn’t want you dead

A gross misquote gets out of hand -- but the iconic boxer still has a long way to go on the sensitivity front
By Mary Elizabeth Williams
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 3:25 PM UTC

... There’s no disputing that Manny Pacquiao is not the most enlightened guy to ever put on gloves and fight for a belt ...

... “God’s words first … obey God’s law first before considering the laws of man,” Pacquiao told Ampong, in what the writer described as “an exclusive interview.” Pacquiao was further quoted explaining that “God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other… It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old.”

OK, it’s generally accepted that invoking Sodom and Gomorrah in general — and Sodom and Gomorrah of Old, in particular — is not going to win anybody a seat at the GLAAD awards ... Pacquiao’s statements quickly set off a chain of angry and just plain disappointed responses from across the Net, where Pacquiao has been celebrated as a Filipino icon, and beloved for his humanitarian works. On Tuesday evening, the Los Angeles shopping center the Grove, where Pacquiao was to be interviewed for “Extra,” called off the event ...

It’s a relatively free country, which means that the Catholic Pacquiao is welcome to express his views, even views many of us find backward and exclusionary. In return, a business like a shopping mall may choose to decline his patronage. What is not OK is what happened along the way ...

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/manny_pacquiao_doesnt_want_you_dead/singleton/