LONDON — A British far-right party has suspended a local councilman who blamed recent severe flooding on the government’s legalization of same-sex marriage.
David Silvester of the United Kingdom Independence Party had written a letter to the Henley Standard claiming he’d warned Prime Minister David Cameron the legislation would result in “disasters” and that the U.K. had been beset by storms since the law’s passage because Cameron had “acted against the gospel.”
“I wrote to David Cameron in April 2012 to warn him that disasters would accompany the passage of his same-sex marriage bill,” wrote Silvester, an elected member of the town council in Henley-on-Thames, west of London.
“It is his (Cameron’s) fault that large swathes of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods,” he wrote.
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The party, known as UKIP, had initially said that Silvester’s views were “not the party’s belief,” but defended his right to express his opinions.
It suspended Silvester on Sunday for defying instructions not to give any further interviews, after Silvester defended his letter to the BBC and called homosexuality a “spiritual disease” which can be healed.
Legislation to allow same-sex marriage in England and Wales was passed in the U.K. Parliament in July 2013 and is expected to come into effect on March 29, 2014.
