PARTIED OUT

UK Conservatives Set An Example For GOP About Dealing With Homophobes In The Ranks

David-Silvester-11Memo to Republicans: Conservatives in the UK can teach you a thing or two about rebranding. After UK Councillor David Silvester blamed recent flooding in England on the LGBT community, the UK Independence Party suspended him from its ranks. Now the UKIP has gone one step further and thrown Silvester out of the party altogether.

At a tumultuous council meeting in Henley, Silvester refused to back down from his remarks. The party said as a result throwing him out of the party was the only solution.

“Because he was an elected official representing UKIP, we take the view that his expression of views was unacceptable and in order to distance UKIP from those views permanently and irrevocably, we have no choice but to expel Mr Silvester,” the party said in a statement.

Silvester linked marriage equality to weather conditions last month. “I wrote to [Prime Minister] David Cameron in April 2012 to warn him that disasters would accompany the passage of his same-sex marriage bill,” Silvester wrote in a letter to a local paper. “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.”

The good news to come out of the controversy: it also proves that the UK has a sense of humor. A campaign to make “It’s Raining Men” hit the top of the UK pop charts met with some success. The song peaked at number 31.

 

 

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