UK Conservative Candidate Suspended After Saying Gay People Should Be Put To Death

Conservative candidate for the U.K.'s Stevenage Council, Matthew Clarke, was forced to step down a week before the election for his homophobic rant from 13 years ago.

Clarke slammed homosexuality in a now-deleted 2005 blog post, saying, "In my experience, most people believe that such behaviour is wrong and disgusting," and he also expressed gay people should face the death penalty.

On the day when same-sex civil partnerships became legal, Clarke continued his disparaging remarks against homosexuals in his blog post under the pseudonym Matthew Celestine.

They would be ashamed for their children to behave in that way, but they would never admit it for fear of being accused of bigotry.

Why should we tolerate such behaviour? If these people think that what they do is decent and good, they are either insane or utterly corrupt morally.

If a man would do the awful things that homosexuals do, we can only expect that he would steal, take drugs or murder people. There is only one penalty in the Bible for such deeds. Death.

He denied sending death threats in another blog in 2016 and defended his statements from 2005.

I never sent death threats. In the past I took the view that homosexuals should face the death penalty.

Clark, who considers himself a 'fundamentalist Christian,' deleted his scathing posts after Jo Phillips – a Glasgow-based Labor activist – exposed him for his scorching comments of hate.

The candidate was poised to contest the Stevenage Borough Council seat for the Tories, but the Stevenage Conservative Association chairman Alexander Clarkson told Metro that Clark was suspended and would no longer be a conservative candidate for the Lib Dem-held Manor ward seat.

According to the Comet, Clark came forward after much public scrutiny and issued an apology.

I would like to express deep regret for the offensive comments I made 13 years ago. "I offer my unreserved apologies for any hurt caused by that blog post and I would like to stress that I have moved on and am no longer the angry and bitter person that I was in 2005.

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