Pastor who praised Pulse nightclub shooter admits to paying for sex

A Texas pastor who voiced support for the gunman who killed 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Florida has resigned — and admitted to using drugs, gambling and paying for sex.

Donnie Romero, formerly the pastor of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, apologized in a YouTube video posted Wednesday.

“I want to tell you guys I’m sorry. I’ve lied to many of the people at our church. Last Wednesday, I resigned, but I didn’t tell anybody all the details,” he said.

“I went to Jacksonville and I went to a casino and I was drinking. And there were girls there that were prostitutes and I committed adultery on my wife multiple times. I drank and gambled multiple times. … I even smoked weed.”

In 2016, Romero gained national notoriety when he sang the praises of Omar Mateen, who opened fire inside the Orlando nightclub before being killed in a shootout with police.

“These 50 sodomites are all perverts and pedophiles, they’re the scum of the Earth and the Earth is a better place now and I’ll take it a step further,” Romero said in a sermon published online by the Dallas Morning News.

“I’ll pray to God like I did this morning, and I will again tonight, that God will finish the job that that man started.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center classified the Stedfast Baptist Church — which is affiliated with Faithful World Baptist Church of Tempe, Arizona — as an anti-LGBT hate group.

The church posted a video on its YouTube page showing Romero announcing that he was stepping down.

“I have been a terrible husband and father,” Romero says in that video. “This is the best decision, for my family and this church, to make.”