A DUP councillor, who claimed Hurricane Katrina was God's way of stopping a gay pride festival, could provoke homophobic murder, campaigners warned yesterday.
The Rev Ian Paisley faced demands to expel Maurice Mills from his Democratic Unionist Party after his comments provoked anger.
But a defiant Mr Mills, who has twice been the deputy mayor of Ballymena, Co Antrim, stood by his assessment.
He said: "The practices in which these people are involved are heinous. As far as I'm concerned God marked the card of those who had previously been involved in the Southern Decadence Festival [ in New Orleans] in 2004 when 125,000 people were present. They were going to have something similar or even better, as they hoped, but two days before there was the intervention of God through the instrument of Hurricane Katrina."
His views horrified trade union officials holding a national anti-prejudice conference in Belfast.
Sean Morrin, co-chair of public-sector union Unison's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group, claimed Mr Mills had delivered a highly dangerous message. "It can be a trigger for homophobic abuse, homophobic violence and certainly can be a trigger to homophobic murder," he said.
"These people still feel they can talk publicly about God wanting to murder thousands of people because there was a gay festival around the corner."
Patricia McKeown, Unison's regional secretary, accused Mr Mills of damaging the union's attempts to make progress in the workplace. "People like that really should be drummed out of public office," she insisted.
A Manchester city councillor, who was visiting Belfast for the conference, said she was astonished.
Mary Murphy added: "If these comments happened in Manchester this person would be stripped of all powers. I'm shocked. I thought when I saw this it was a wind-up." - (PA)