KENILWORTH, 20 OCTOBER 2004 — The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) has welcomed the firm stance taken by Cardiff Council concerning the visit of the homophobic Christian evangelist Luis Palau.
The council has withdrawn a civic reception which was to have been hosted next week by Lord Mayor Jacqui Gasson, and the city’s first citizen has also pulled out of a dinner organised as part of 04 the City, a celebration to mark the centenary of the Welsh revival.
Mr Palau is a high-profile evangelist who organises large-scale rallies all over the United States and South America. He delivers the usual terrifying threats of eternal damnation for those who don’t live by the authoritarian rules of his literalist religion and goes on at great length about all the usual fundamentalist obsessions – abortion, homosexuality, sex before marriage, vote-for-Bush-or-else.
Mrs Gasson said: “I was not prepared to host an event for a gay-basher. It would go completely against the views of the council.”
Council leader Rodney Berman, who is himself gay, said: “Someone who holds this kind of intolerant views is not someone we should be spending money on, that would be sending out completely the wrong message.”
Labour Assembly member Lorraine Barrett said: “Mr Palau’s views are very narrow and critical of anyone who does not follow his extreme evangelical beliefs. He calls anyone who is not of his faith ‘barbarians’. Using public money to fund an event for a man with little respect for anyone else’s beliefs or non-beliefs would be insensitive.”
GALHA Secretary George Broadhead said: “At last someone has had the guts to stand up to this bigot. In his own country he is extremely powerful, so it is a pleasure seeing him put in his place by Cardiff Council.”