KaleidoScot The Northern end of the rainbow
David Coburn, the leader of UKIP in Scotland blamed “equality nazis” for stopping a referendum on “gay marriage” “like in Ireland”.
UKIP Scotland’s leader and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) tweeted at Nicola Sturgeon saying: ”I wanted a referendum on gay marriage like Ireland the equality nazis stopped that.”
@mjkeatings @SoarAlba59 @theSNP @NicolaSturgeon I wanted a referendum on gay marriage like Ireland the equality nazis stopped that
— David Coburn MEP (@DavidCoburnUKip) July 18, 2016
In a series of other tweets he stated that there were only 30,000 same-sex marriages in the UK out of a million since marriage equality was legalised, saying that it proved his “point” that the legalisation was not needed.
@mjkeatings @SoarAlba59 @theSNP @NicolaSturgeon I still believe to be true and 30k gay marriages out of 1 million proves my point
— David Coburn MEP (@DavidCoburnUKip) July 18, 2016
The tweets came as a twitter spat developed after Coburn said the SNP had a “nazi past” and was challenged by several SNP supporters who also pointed out his use of the word Nazi to describe equality campaigners.
In addition, Coburn tweeted a few days earlier that Andrea Leadsom’s “view on gay marriage and civil partnership” was identical to his.
@DVATW Andrea leadsom view on gay marriage and civil partnership identical to mine
— David Coburn MEP (@DavidCoburnUKip) July 7, 2016
Earlier this month Leadsom stated: “my own view is that marriage in the biblical sense is very clearly, from the many, many Christians who wrote to me on this subject, in their opinion, can only be between a man and a woman.”
Although she subsequently clarified and said she supported marriage equality.
Reacting to Coburn’s tweets, Tim Hopkins, of the Equality Network, told Kaleidoscot: “Equal marriage has been very widely welcomed as making Scotland a better, fairer and more inclusive nation.
“It was voted in by an overwhelming majority of MSPs, and is supported by 60 to 70% of people right across Scotland. That’s somewhat more than the 2% of people who voted UKIP in May.”
This is not the first time Coburn expresses such views. Two years ago he also compared LGBTI equality campaigners to Nazis and said that equal marriage only matters to “some queen who wants to dress up in a bridal frock and dance up the aisle to the Village People.”
The MEP, who is an out gay man and has been in a same-sex relationship for over 30 years, said then that same-sex marriage, which passed into law in 2013, was “false bollocks” that “makes a mockery of the holy sacrament of marriage”.
“What you’re doing with the gay marriage issue is you’re rubbing people’s noses in the dirt. Everyone had agreed and been quite happy with the idea of civil partnership, it was all bedded in and people were happy with it, they got used to the idea,” he said.
“But when you go across the road to pick a fight with someone of faith, that’s not got anything to do with it, that’s the equality Nazis trying to give Christianity a jolly good kicking. You know it, I know it, we all know it – it’s false bollocks, the lot of it.”
Coburn previously also called Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, a “fat lesbian.”
In a recent interview David Coburn said that a £5,000 deposit to run for UKIP party leader, to replace Nigel Farage, was a necessary barrier because the party was full of “total tossers.”
