The announcement of a snap election was barely a day old before question marks appeared yet again over Tim Farron's views on homosexuality. After failing for a second time to directly answer Cathy Newman's questioning over whether gay sex was a sin, the media became awash with sweeping declarations that Tim Farron is a homophobe.
It would be remiss of me not to state my allegiances from the fore, I am a Liberal Democrat, but I'm also an openly gay man - one who voted for Tim Farron to lead the party in 2015.
The concerns over Tim Farron's personal views are understandable, but ultimately, they are immaterial. Whilst Farron may hold the view that God views gay sex as 'sinful', he has always stood on the side of political LGBT+ equality.
His personal views, if they even are his personal views, make many within the Liberal Democrats squeamish - but he has the conviction to realise that his alleged personal views are not ones that should be enshrined in law.
Trust me, I have personally lobbied him to back LGBT+ rights issues and he has, without exception, enthusiastically supported them. After all, elections in the UK are about electing representatives who espouse your political views, not your personal ones.
There is, in turn, a lot of misinformation over Tim Farron's stances on homosexuality and LGBT+ rights too. He has never said that being gay is a sin, he voted for same-sex marriage, and he was the first major party leader to stand up for the attempted gay genocide in Chechnya and to lead the fight against the MSM blood donation ban.
Meanwhile, the media remains silent on the several, more sinister misdemeanours of the leaders of the other parties. Theresa May wasted no time cosying up to Saudi Arabia, a state where being gay is punishable by death, this, following her long history of voting down LGBT+ rights progression including equal adoption laws.
As well as this, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has worrying links to homophobic terror organisations in Hamas and Hezbollah as well as a condemnable history as a paid correspondent on Iranian Press TV, the state broadcaster of another country where gay people are put to death for their sexuality - yet he failed to use his platform to raise these concerns whilst pocketing £20,000 in the process.
The Liberal Democrats are a party that are essentially built on their staggeringly disproportionate queer activist base. The party has a proud history of leading on LGBT+ issues, including its flagship policy of introducing same-sex marriage during the Coalition government.
Alongside this, the party were the first in Britain to adopt a gay rights policy and have a long history of championing flagship causes like equalising the age of consent, pardoning historical sex offences and abolishing Section 28.
Currently, the party continues to fight for the LGBT+ cause with commitments to broader representation of gender identity on official documents, protecting gay fans from abuse in sport, giving gay co-habiting couples equal legal rights, and promoting UK's international standing as a platform to combat homophobic regimes abroad.
Tim Farron's personal views may be understandably troubling to some, but the spurious links to the Liberal Democrats being an unsafe choice for LGBT+ voters is farcical. For as long as history can remember, the Liberal party of the United Kingdom has been the one that has led on LGBT+ issues. The Liberal Democrats is not only a safe home for LGBT+ voters, but is actually the safest - and always will be.