First-class local homophobe and pious pastor Patrick Wooden, Sr. of Raleigh’s Upper Room Church of God proudly bought a full-page newspaper ad urging ‘all Christians to spend their hard-earned dollars with merchants who include the greeting ‘Merry Christmas’ in their holiday advertising promotions this Christmas’. The church spent $7,600. How many homeless could that have fed? (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)

This guy makes me sick. He has been a hostile local force against gay people in the Triangle and has no problem railing on about gays in print:

“I cannot stand by and say nothing while this wicked phenomenon takes place.”

“We have to block the use of euphemisms when we talk about homosexuals,” he said. “They are not gay. We’ve got to use terms like ‘deviant’ and ‘abomination.’ ”

“If we’re labeled as being fanatical Christians, we embrace it.”

“[Homosexuality is] ‘one of the greatest enemies of Christianity.'”

Now he’s graduated to religious intolerance:

“There is a revival taking place in our nation that is causing Christian and right-minded people to say, `Wait a minute. We’ve gone too far,'” says the Rev. Patrick Wooden Sr., pastor of the Raleigh church. “We’re not going to allow the country to continue this downward spiral to the left.”

But to many, the threats and demands that stores put up “Merry Christmas” signs are no laughing matter.

“Why not simply require stores owned by Jews to put a gold star in their ads and on their storefronts?” the Rev. Jim Melnyk, associate rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh, wrote in a letter to the editor.