Is it common for American pastors to say stuff like this?

[Chris]

I would say that it is hard to say because we only hear from the really wacky ones. I have been in every corner of the United States except Hawaii and have found fundamentalists who are unmoved by evidence and more liberal believers who will accept homosexuality and evolution as part of God's plan everywhere. Often, the fundamentalists scream the loudest, so they get the coverage from the media.

When I was a regular church-goer (Lutheran and later Methodist), we generally learned of evolution as the mechanism God used for creation and that homosexuality was undesirable, but was a private matter.

I don't know what convinces clergy that lying for Jesus is a good idea, nor do I know how common it really is.