Hate preacher who praised Orlando shooter will visit Ireland despite EU ban
Steven Anderson has been banned from 31 countries. (YouTube)
Steven Anderson, an anti-LGBT hate figure who has called for the “execution” of all gay people, will visit Dublin later this month after being banned from entering most of Europe.
The American preacher was due to visit the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland as part of a speaking tour at the end of May, until it was announced on Wednesday (May 1) that he would not be allowed to enter the Schengen Area, the EU’s common travel zone.
The Netherlands’ security minister Mark Harbers announced the ban in the Dutch Parliament, saying: “There is no place in a democratic nation like ours for discrimination, incitement to hatred or intolerance and violence on any grounds.”
Steven Anderson will fly to Dublin on May 26
However Anderson has confirmed that he will fly to Ireland on May 26—which along with Britain, is not a part of Schengen.
“So far so good on Dublin; it is still on,” he said in a video seen by The Times.
“These events are still going on—the soul-winning and the preaching are still going on. It’s just yours truly who won’t be there, except I am planning to be there in Ireland.”
More than 11,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Irish Government to ban Anderson from entering the country.
“Steven Anderson is a Holocaust-denier, Islamophobe and anti-LGBT+ extremist who is scheduled to preach in Dublin, Ireland on May 26, possibly in an attempt to get people to change their minds on last year’s abortion referendum,” the petition’s creator William Jenkins wrote.
“Steven Anderson is a Holocaust-denier, Islamophobe and anti-LGBT+ extremist.”
—William Jenkins
“This petition is for the people to show that they want Pastor Steven Anderson banned from entering the Republic of Ireland.”
LGBT+ rights group All Out has launched a separate petition with the Irish website Gay Community News and the charity LGBT Ireland.
Steven Anderson banned from Britain
Anderson was banned from entering the UK in 2016 after he praised the shooter who killed 49 people in Pulse, an LGBT+ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. He has also been banned from entering Canada, Botswana, Jamaica and South Africa.
Speaking after the attack in June 2016, Anderson said: “The good news is that there’s 50 less paedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and paedophiles.”
Prior to that, Anderson made the disturbing claim that LGBT+ genocide could be a cure for HIV/AIDS.
“If you execute the homos like god recommends, you wouldn’t have AIDs,” he said in 2014.
