As word spread — and shocked outage grew — that North Carolina Pastor Sean Harris has been instructing parents to beat their children if the children seem homosexual and/or non-gender conforming, Harris and his Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina are too stupid to get their damage control straight.

Harris the baby beater told the Fayetteville Observer that he was “joking” when he told parishioners to break their gay son’s limp wrists.

But the Berean Baptist Church’s Business Manager Carinda Kerr told this reporter that when Pastor Harris instructed parishioners to beat their gay and/or gay-seeming children, it was “hyperbole.”  Kerr explained: “Jesus said, “if the right eye offends you, pluck it out.”

Isn’t that helpful?  The gay-bashing preacher claims he was joking, while his church’s business manager says he was acting in the spirit of Jesus!

We don’t even know if the church wants the world to think that Pastor Harris was joking or speaking like Jesus when he instructed his parishioners to beat children.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue said: “This absolutely is connected with the marriage amendment, which the governor is on record as opposing. The amendment campaign has unleashed all kinds of hateful things across the state.”