UKIP Councillor David Silvester In Bizarre Homophobic Rant Blaming Gay Marriage For Bad Weather

UPDATE: David Silvester has just spoken to his local BBC radio station and made some claims about being able to heal gay people with religion. You can read all about it here.

The UKIP Councillor for Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire has written an odd, homophobic letter to a local newspaper.

David Silvester, who resigned from the Conservative Party over David Cameron’s same-sex marriage policy, has said gay marriage is to blame for Britain's recent spell of bad weather in a letter to The Henley Standard.

He wrote: "Since the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, the nation has been beset by serious storms and floods."

Ukip have reacted to the councillor's comments by telling HuffPost: "If the media are expecting UKIP to either condemn or condone someone's personal religious views they will get absolutely no response."

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Ominously discussing the flooding in his letter to the newspaper Mr Silvester ponders: "Is this just global warming or is there something more serious at work?"

Expanding on this rather doom-laden suggestion, he launches into an eyebrow-raising tirade, quoting The Bible, and explaining that acts like gay marriage are to blame for storms, disease, pestilence and war.

"The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters."

He does say he warned the Prime Minister about the gays and their apparent secret agenda to destroy humanity, adding: "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.

"Now, even as Cameron sheds crocodile tears on behalf of destitute flooded homeowners, playing at advocate against the very local councils he has made cash-strapped, it is his fault that large swathes of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods.

"He has arrogantly acted against the Gospel that once made Britain 'great' and the lesson surely to be learned is that no man or men, however powerful, can mess with Almighty God with impunity and get away with it for everything a nation does is weighed on the scaled of divine approval or disapproval."

Unfortunately for the councillor, more bad weather is predicted – so it seems gay marriage is going nowhere fast.

A Ukip spokeswoman told the Huffington Post UK that "freedom to individual thought and expression is a central tenet of any open minded and democratic country.

"It is quite evident that this is not the Party's belief but the councillor's own and he is more than entitled to express independent thought despite whether or not other people may deem it standard or correct.

"That is what makes the United Kingdom such a wonderful, proud, diverse and free country."

But the Conservative District Councillor for Henley on Thames told HuffPost Mr Silvester's comments highlighted how Ukip would take the UK back to the Stone Age if elected.

"Playing 'spot the wrath' with pages of the Henley Standard is absurd,” William Hall said.

"Many people around here appreciate a sound stance on cutting taxes and getting out of the EU but once you scratch the surface UKIP is a party that would take us back to the Stone Age."

The Henley Standard has been contacted for comment.