A pastor at the First Baptist Church of Zeeland, Michigan came under fire after comparing being gay to waking up as an ax murderer. Clint Echols, the Evangelical Baptist church's senior preacher on March 1 was preaching to his congregation to support an amendment to the church's bylaws

Pastor Echols defiantly read anti-gay passages from the bible to his congregation and stated it was not hate speech.

But it was his personal interpretation of the bible that caused an uproar.

"Sexuality is commonly seen in American culture to be an internal compass that a person discovers as he develops as a person today, OK?," Pastor Nichols told his congregation. "So the movement that contradicts biblical sexuality has really changed its foundational thesis, and said, no, it’s an internal compass and a person can discover their sexuality at any moment. It may be at 10, it may be at 20, it may be after they’ve been married for 10 years and have two kids and then they say, ‘Oh, wait a second, I’m gay; I’m bisexual; I want to change my gender,’ these things. And that’s being true to themselves and being true their internal compass,” Pastor Clint Echols said about 41 minutes into the sermon. “And so, for instance, if on another, completely other playing field, if tomorrow I woke up because I’ve got this internal compass that’s telling me what truth is, tomorrow I wake up and say, ‘Oh, I think I’m an ax murderer,’ and now I’m an ax murderer, would you be happy with that? Would you agree? Would you want me to follow that internal compass?"