Northamptonshire Councillor Cancelled and Suspended for Tweet About Pride
Christian Councillor King Lawal, who has been a councillor at North Northamptonshire Unitary Council for two years, was cancelled by seven organizations and suspended by the Conservative party pending an investigation over his tweets. His tweets commented on an LGBT pride parade that included naked men illegally parading through the streets in front of children. On June 19, he tweeted: "When did Pride become a thing to celebrate? Because of Pride Satan fell as an archangel. Pride is not a virtue but a sin." On the same day he posted the tweet, he was contacted by the leader of North Northamptonshire Unitary Council who told him that he was suspended for 21 days pending an investigation. On July 3, a local authority that held a substantial council contract with Cllr Lawal's family business ordered an urgent meeting. The family business was told that unless Cllr Lawal was removed immediately as director, their contract would be withdrawn. Under potentially illegal pressure, Cllr Lawal resigned from his own company. Supported by the Christian Legal Centre, Cllr Lawal instructed his lawyers to prepare legal action alleging multiple violations of his rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. On October 26, at a full council meeting, Cllr Lawal was reinstated. After being suspended for 3 months, Cllr Lawal said he was "relieved" but the Conservative party had still not dropped the complaint against him.
After his first tweet, Cllr Lawal later provided further clarification in a more detailed statement: "When I referred to Pride as a sin in my previous post, it may have been misinterpreted as hateful. Let me explain why it is not... When Christians refer to ‘sin’ or ‘sinners’ we are speaking of ourselves. We are not singling out specific people or groups of people as sinners. Sin according to the bible includes, lying, stealing, gossip and hatred, not just things like homosexuality, adultery and sex outside of the marriage. Jesus said that even to have unholy thoughts that we never act on is sinful. Therefore every single one of us is sinful by this standard, including myself... This is the whole point of Christianity and the point of Jesus’ death. He doesn’t want to see us suffer for our sin because he loves us and doesn’t want us to take the punishment... So when Christians say ‘repent’ and believe in Jesus or refer to something you associate with as ‘sin’, it’s not because they hate you. it is because they love you and want to see you saved from punishment the same way they have been saved... I therefore do not come against those celebrating Pride to attack who they are, my intention was to say that I would not celebrate this any more than I would celebrate a month of gossip or anything else the bible calls sin.”
Immediately following the call from the leader of North Northamptonshire Unitary Council, without discussion, Cllr Lawal was then dismissed as trustee of Groundwork Northampton, and the following day he was suspended as an Academy Council member for Weavers Academy. He was also removed as Governor of Northampton Healthcare Foundation Trust.
UPDATE: Following a six-month investigation, a Conservative Party disciplinary sub-committee has rejected a complaint against one of its Christian councillors and concluded that criticising the LGBTQI+ Pride movement is not ‘homophobic.’. Eventhough Councillor Lawal had already been cleared of any wrong doing on November 6th he did not find out abut this until three months later due to the CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters).
Sources: Christian Concern, BBC, Telegraph (Update) - Telegraph, Christian Concern, BNN
Picture: Christian Concern