Franklin Graham claims he’s not homophobic despite asking hospital volunteers to oppose same-sex marriage

Evangelical pastor also criticised Supreme Court’s historic ruling that protects LGBT+ Americans from discrimination at work

Evangelical pastor Franklin Graham has insisted that he is not homophobic, despite asking volunteers in his hospital to oppose same-sex marriage, and criticising Monday’s Supreme Court ruling that protects LGBT+ Americans from discrimination at work.

Mr Graham’s Christian charitable group, Samaritans’ Purse, set up a makeshift field hospital in New York, in April, to help treat coronavirus patients.

However, the group and Mr Graham asked those who wanted to volunteer at the hospital, to agree to a statement, that included the phrase: “Marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.”

Speaking to Laura Ingraham of Fox News on Sunday, Mr Graham defended the statement and claimed that he is not homophobic, but wants people to “know the truth,” according to Newsweek.

Mr Graham said: “I’m not homophobic and I’m certainly not going around bashing people because they may be homosexual.”

He added: “I believe that God loves all of us, he created us all but we also are sinners and our sins separated from God and I want people to know how they can have a relationship with God and that’s their faith in his son.

“I don’t bash them. I want them to know the truth. That God does love them.”

On Monday, Mr Graham also criticised the Supreme Court ruling that found that Title VIIof the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBT+ workers from discrimination in the workplace.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Mr Graham criticised the decision and said that his religious freedoms should be protected.

“As a Bible-believing follower of Jesus Christ, my rights should be protected,” Mr Graham wrote.

“Even if my sincerely held religious beliefs might be the minority, I still have a right to hold them. The same holds true for a Christian organisation. These are the freedoms our nation was founded on.”

The historic ruling was passed 6-3 in the Supreme Court, and will protect LGBT+ Americans from being fired because of their sexuality.

Neil Gorsuch, a conservative judge appointed by president Donald Trump to the Supreme Court, voted in favour of the ruling, and authored the majority opinion.

He wrote: “An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”