Jesse Lee Peterson has emerged as one of the right’s most vocal anti-gay figures, but his one-time friends now allege that the pastor has had many same-sex relationships. In the hyper-masculine right-wing internet community known as the “manosphere,” few figures loom larger than Jesse Lee Peterson. The Los Angeles-based pastor and online radio host has become a star in conservative media in part for his demands that men and women return to his unorthodox version of traditional gender norms. Peterson’s ideas about gender can be eccentric even by the standards of his compatriots, with Peterson claiming that a woman who orgasms during sex is somehow “becoming a man,” a practice he frowns upon. Peterson has also emerged as one of the right’s most vocal anti-gay figures. He’s claimed that people who march in gay pride parades are the children of Satan, and that “radical homosexuals are evil.” He’s become a regular sparring partner for progressive YouTube personalities, telling online commentator “Destiny” in 2020 that he didn’t understand why his debating partner was openly bisexual. “I don’t understand the purpose of putting that out there,” Peterson said. “People are going to judge you, they’re going to look down on you.” Now several of Peterson’s one-time friends allege that the pastor’s own personal life is rife with gay sexual relationships. Two of Peter’s former male associates came out in June with on-the-record interviews saying they engaged in sexual activities with him, while other men say he propositioned them. These allegations about the pastor—who in public is staunchly heterosexual—have ripped like an earthquake through the manosphere, prompting some of Peterson’s allies to abandon him and prompting one manosphere conference to ban him. “I’m very sorry to have Jesse’s situation damage the conservative movement,” Patrick Rooney, one of the men who claims to have had a sexual relationship with Peterson, told The Daily Beast.
via daily beast: Allegations of Manosphere Pastor’s Gay Past Roil Macho Men
