Roger Helmer has been selected as UKIP's candidate for the Newark by-election that will take place on the 5th of June following the "resignation" of cash for questions Tory MP Patrick Mercer.
The gutter press have been trying to outdo each other with character assassinations against Roger since the announcement was made that he would be standing, all of them based on a defamatory work of fiction published in the Sun a couple of weeks ago which tried to make him sound like a gay-basher.
Roger made a statement on the Sun's attack on him at the time which should have cleared it up but the press are baying for UKIP blood, even if they have to make stuff up to get it.
A Personal Statement on The Sun’s accusations regarding homosexuality
I was shocked and appalled by the assertions made on April 29th in The Sun, and the next day by the Independent, that I had said it was “OK to despise gay people”. The Independent version was worse “OK to hate gay people”. The Sun added that I had said “homosexuality is a mental condition”, and implied that I thought that “homophobia is OK”. I absolutely reject these allegations: I never said these things, and they certainly do not represent my views. Let’s look at them one by one:
“It’s OK to despise gay people”: How the Sun gets from “It’s OK to have personal preferences” to “It’s OK to despise gay people”, I’m not sure.
“Being gay is a mental condition”. In about thirty seconds I was able to identify two blog posts in my extensive blog archive in which I make the point explicitly that homosexuality is not a disease.
“Homophobia is OK”. As a technical linguistic point, I have questioned the use of the term “phobia” in this context, since it has a specific meaning in psychiatry which does not (it seems to me) apply in this case. But I have also written very clearly that prejudice, hostility and violence against any minority are wrong, and totally unacceptable.
In a blog post on July 19th 2009 I wrote: “Now I regard myself as liberal and tolerant on the question of homosexuality. I have no interest in telling consenting adults what they may or may not do behind closed doors. I have a number of colleagues whom I believe to be homosexual, and that causes me no problems at all. Indeed there may be more people that I work with, who may be homosexual without my knowing it, since (as a friend once remarked) my “Gaydar” is poorly developed. I am content to treat people as people, regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation”. http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/poles-take-some-stick/
wonkotsane is an author at Bloggers4UKIP.
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