Anti-'gay' Bible verse angers Florida airport

FORT LAUDERDALE – Authorities in South Florida have identified and fired the person responsible for quoting an anti-homosexual Bible verse over the public address system at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Apparently Jethro Monestime, 23, a skycap for Superior Aircraft Services, used the microphone without permission to quote from Leviticus 20:13, which states:

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. (New International Version)

The passage was read more than once in the baggage area of Terminal 3 at 12:45 a.m. Tuesday, prompting complaints from a local homosexual couple.

"It was almost so threatening I was frightened," Waymon Hudson, who overheard the message with his partner of six years, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

"I understand that it is a Bible verse," said his partner, Anthony Niedwiecki, "but there should be no reason that a Bible verse to begin with should be going over the PA system of a public entity."

Broward County's mayor apologized for the incident Friday, and the county administrator had vowed if a county employee were responsible, the person would be fired, which indeed was the result.

"We welcome all people of all races ... all ethnicities, all religions and sexual orientations," Mayor Josephus Eggelletion Jr. told the paper. "We have a very large gay population, and we are sorry this occurred."

A member of the public could get access to the microphone, but it's designed for airport-employee use only, and a code needs to be punched in to choose the loudspeakers on which it is heard.

Monestime said he didn't know a homosexual couple was in the terminal at the time of the broadcast, according to airport officials.

But Niedwiecki says he's skeptical of the claim.

''Who's to say he didn't see us walking over from baggage claim and then decide to play the message?'' he told the Miami Herald. "There's a definite possibility that we were targeted.''

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