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Anti-LGBT Preacher Banned From Botswana Too 

Anti-LGBT Preacher Banned From Botswana Too 

steven anderson

First it was South Africa keeping homophobic minister Steven Anderson out. Botswana is now following suit.

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Steven Anderson, the anti-LGBT pastor who was banned from entering South Africa, was deported from Botswana Tuesday.

The Botswana government issued a statement via Twitter, calling Anderson a "prohibited immigrant" who was not welcome in the country.

Anderson is the leader of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., which has been labeled a hate group by the civil rights group Southern Law Poverty Center.

The pastor was detained by immigration officials after an interview Anderson did with national radio station Gabz FM in the capital city of Gaborone, Newsweek reports. The pastor told the radio station that the Botswana government should be killing LGBT people and that anyone who engages in adultery should be executed by stoning.

Anderson's evangelical trip that was going to start in South Africa is part of what he called a "soul-winning marathon." The pastor was banned from South Africa after LGBT activists lobbied the government to prevent his entry because of his reputation for hateful anti-LGBT rhetoric. The activists were successful in convincing the government, and such activism to have also influenced the Botswana government.

After Anderson was barred from entering South Africa Tuesday by the South African Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba, the pastor bragged on his personal Facebook page, saying, "Thank God we still have a wide open door in Botswana. Stand by for reports of MULTITUDES saved in Botswana, where religious freedom still exists."

The Arizona pastor is known for spreading anti-LGBT hate at his church. After 49 people lost their lives in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Anderson said, "Obviously, it's not right for someone to just shoot up the place because that's not going through the proper channels. But these people all should have been killed anyway."

In 2014 he preached that AIDS through a "holocaust" of LGBT people. "It was right there in the Bible all along -- and they're out spending billions of dollars in research and testing. It's curable -- right there. Because if you executed the homos like God recommends, you wouldn't have all this AIDS running rampant," Anderson said.

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Yezmin Villarreal

Yezmin Villarreal is the former news editor for The Advocate. Her work has also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Mic, LA Weekly, Out Magazine and The Fader.
Yezmin Villarreal is the former news editor for The Advocate. Her work has also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Mic, LA Weekly, Out Magazine and The Fader.