Antivax Minister Who Mocked AIDS Dies of COVID-19 Complications

A homophobic Denver minister and talk show host who once mocked AIDS casualties has died of COVID-19 after refusing to be vaccinated.

Bob Enyart was pastor of the Denver Bible Church and cohost of Real Science Radio. His cohost, Fred Williams, announced Enyart's death Monday on Facebook, calling him "one of the smartest, and without question, the wisest person I've known."

Enyart and his wife, Cheryl, had refused to receive a COVID-19 vaccine because of the use of stem cell lines from aborted fetuses in vaccine development (the vaccines themselves do not contain such cells). Cheryl Enyart has also been hospitalized for COVID-19 complications, Denver's Westword reports.

The minister once described himself as "America's most popular self-proclaimed right-wing, religious fanatic, homophobic, antichoice talk show host." At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Enyart, on a TV show he had at the time, "would gleefully read obituaries of AIDS sufferers while cranking 'Another One Bites the Dust' by Queen, whose lead singer, Freddie Mercury, succumbed to the malady," according to an earlier Westword article.

His anti-LGBTQ+ views were also evident in a video he made in 2012 protesting Starbucks' support for marriage equality. He bought a coffee drink at Starbucks, then dumped it down a sewer. "Jesus Christ said God made us male and female at the beginning of the creation," he said. "Starbucks, in a move that's not wise for eternity and not good for business here and now, has decided to promote homosexual marriage." Gay blogger Jeremy Hooper noted at the time that even though Enyart didn't drink the coffee, he had paid for it, so he wasn't exactly boycotting Starbucks, as antigay forces were urging their followers to do.

Enyart made news during the COVID pandemic by winning a temporary restraining order last year against Colorado's capacity limits for religious services and mandate for mask use at those services. Unlike some on the far right, he didn't claim that COVID was a hoax, but he did write in a web post that "mitigation efforts appear to be worse than the disease."

He had another moment of fame in 1999 by winning several pieces of O.J. Simpson memorabilia at an auction and burning them in protest on the steps of a Los Angeles courthouse. "Since the government will not put O.J. to death, then it is left to those who care about righteousness to do what we can, and that is to put to death the memory of his career," he said at the time. Simpson was tried for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman, but was acquitted. He was found responsible for their deaths in a civil trial, and he was later imprisoned for the armed robbery and kidnapping of sports memorabilia dealers.