If gay and lesbian people were concerned that David Cameron’s Tory party hadn’t changed much from the bad old days of Section 28 and Norman Tebbit – despite a welcome pledge by the party to review the status of Civil partnerships with a view to simply calling them marriages (or not) – they’ll find little comfort in the news that one Tory candidate wants to eradicate homosexuality.
The Observer reports that Philippa Stroud – the Tory candidate pipped to win in the Sutton and Cheam constituency – founded a church which tried to “cure” homosexuals by driving out their “demons” through prayer.
The paper notes that Stroud is “head of the Centre for Social Justice, the think-tank set up by the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, has heavily influenced David Cameron’s beliefs on subjects such as the family.”
Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society says: “This reinforces our long-held suspicions that those out of sight, but with their hands on the levers of power, have deeply reactionary ambitions.”
The liberal Christian organisation, Ekklesia makes another point:
The crucial question about Philippa Stroud, the prospective Tory MP featured on the front page of today’s Observer, has not yet been asked.
The paper has focused on her views about homosexuality. But there is a far more important issue, and that is who would have influence and ‘authority’ over Mrs Stroud if she were elected?
The New Frontiers Church that she attends, and of which her husband is one of the main leaders, teaches that a husband has ‘authority’ over his wife, and that a wife should submit to a husband’s will in all things.
Oh dear.
But the best comment on this these foolish people can be found at The Daily Mash.
