The UK Independence Party (Ukip) has
suspended a member for speaking out against Britain's gay marriage
law.
David Silvester wrote in a letter
published last week in the Henley Standard that he had warned
Prime Minister David Cameron of the consequences such a law would
bring.
“I wrote to David Cameron in April
2012 to warn him that disasters would accompany the passage of his
same sex marriage bill but he went ahead despite a 600,000-signature
petition by concerned Christians and more than half of his own
parliamentary party saying that he should not do so,” Silvester
wrote.
“It is his fault that large swathes
of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods,” he added.
Ukip leaders, who initially supported
Silvester's right to speak out, used emergency powers to suspend him.
“We cannot have any individual using
the Ukip banner to promote their controversial personal beliefs which
are not shared by the party,” Roger Bird, the party's chairman in
southeast England, told
AFP news agency.
Bird added that the party had ordered
Silvester not to speak to the media. On Sunday, however, Silvester
told BBC radio that being gay was a “disease” that could be
“healed.”