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Ireland bans USA anti-gay preacher Steven Anderson

14 May 2019

A petition calling for him to be barred from the country gained over 14,000 signatures.

Anderson released a video prior to Ireland banning him, saying he was going there to preach to the "righteous remnant", adding that "the vast majority of the wicked people over there have already just embraced bloody infanticide", referring to the country voting to legalize abortion previous year.

Heeding public discontent, Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has placed a ban on the controversial US Pastor Steven Anderson from entering Ireland.

However, Minister Flanagan confirmed last night that he signed the exclusion order banning the preacher under the Immigration Act 1999.

Anderson's church holds a literal belief in the King James version of the Bible.

Anderson has also referred to gay people as "disgusting", "vile", "reprobate", "haters of the lord", "filled with murder", and "basically rapists".

The Department has the power to make such orders under the Immigration Act 1999.

In September 2016, Mr Anderson was banned from South Africa, the United Kingdom, and later deported from Botswana.

After 49 people were killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Mr Anderson told his audience the victims "deserved to die in the shooting".

"We believe that homosexuality is a sin and an abomination which God punishes with the death penalty", reads a statement on the church website. The video, titled Marching to Zion, also repeats the antisemitic trope that Jews lied about the Holocaust in order to create the state of Israel.

In the Irish Independent Doyle wrote that "the 38-year-old recently posted a video in which he said his European tour was curtailed but he stilled planned to fly directly to Dublin". "It is still on", he said. "The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive, so they're going to continue to molest children and recruit people into their filthy homosexual lifestyle".

Mr Anderson has been banned from a number of countries, including the UK.

Ireland bans USA anti-gay preacher Steven Anderson