Jimmy Swaggart
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Claims to fame: High-profile televangelist; Muslim-basher; potential gay-killer; masochist; john; crybaby
Pinnacle of righteousness: In 1986, exposed extramarital affair of fellow Assemblies of God preacher Marvin Gorman; Gorman was subsequently defrocked.
Tongues-O’-Fire Moment: Fueled by his success at destroying Gorman, Swaggart then turned his attention to Jim Bakker of the PTL (a.k.a. Praise the Lord, a.k.a. People That Love) TV ministry, telling Assemblies of God stories (which were true) about Bakker cheating on his heavily-made-up wife Tammy Faye. Bakker was, Swaggart told Larry King in 1987, a “cancer that needed to be excised from the body of Christ.”
Karmic Comeback: With nothing to lose, Marvin Gorman sent a private dick to trail Swaggart…
Punch line: …who was nailing hookers in cheap motels.
Moral apex: When confronted by Assemblies of God and suspended from the ministry for one year, Swaggart went on TV and bawled his eyes out, begging his flock for forgiveness — without specifying exactly what sort of “moral failure” he was guilty of.
Divine justice: Swaggart’s viewership — and donations — plummeted, and his ministry never recovered.
Sealing the deal: In 1989, in two separate issues of Penthouse magazine, two different hookers detailed their encounters with Swaggart; one said he wanted to be whipped with a riding crop, and the other said he wanted to have sex with her nine-year-old daughter.
No Fool Like an Old Fool moment: In 1991, Swaggart was arrested by police in Indio, California, after picking up a local streetwalker.
Takes One to Know One moment: In 2002, Swaggart called the Prophet Muhammad a “sex deviant” and “pervert.” (And, for the record, he called for the deportation of all foreign-born Muslim students from the U.S., as well as profiling of all airline passengers “with a diaper on their head and a fan belt around their waist.”)
Memorable quotes:
I get amazed. I can’t look at it but about ten seconds, at these politicians dancing around this, dancing around this — I’m trying to find a correct name for it — this utter, absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry.[Laughs.]
And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.
Case anybody doesn’t know, God calls it an abomination. It’s an abomination. It’s an abomination! These ridiculous, utterly absurd district attorneys and judges and state congress. “Well, we don’t know.” They oughta — they oughta — they oughta have to marry a pig and live with them forever.
I’m not knocking the poor homosexual, I’m not. They need salvation just like anybody else. I’m knocking our pitiful, pathetic lawmakers. And I thank God that President Bush has stated we need a Constitutional amendment that says that marriage is between a man and a woman. All right!
— September 12, 2004
It’s a humorous statement that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t lie to God — it’s ridiculous. If it’s an insult, I certainly didn’t think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology.
— Back-handed “apology” for the previous remark
September 22, 2004
Fun fact: Swaggart is a first cousin to wildly-successful singing hellraisers Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley.
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Swaggart:
Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.
— Deuteronomy 9:8
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