A Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) councillor has been slammed for ‘disgusting’ comments which made connections between the LGBTQ+ community and Palestinian organisation Hamas

Newtownards councillor Colin Kennedy made the remarks during a five-minute-long speech at a meeting of Ards and North Down Borough Council Wednesday (26 October)

In the speech, Kennedy said people who “enthusiastically endorse the LGBTQIA alphabet soup mafia” are now “seeking to defend Hamas”

He then alleged: “What binds these causes is a deep-seated hatred of the West”[…]
The DUP councillor’s anti-LGBTQ+ comments sparked immediate backlash at the meeting

Two members of the council – independent councillor Ray McKimm and Hannah Irwin, the council’s deputy mayor and an Alliance councillor – left the chamber at Bangor Castle in protest, Belfast Live reported

“As a member of the LGBTQ community, I feel pretty personally offended by it,” she said

DUP councillor Jennifer Gilmor, the mayor who was chairing the meeting, responded to say she didn’t feel the “comments were directed towards a personal individual in the room”

Kennedy refused to withdraw his remarks but would be open to talking to Irwin afterwards to “assuage any concerns she might have”[…]
In 2021, Kennedy baselessly claimed the campaign to ban conversion therapy as a “hoax” that was part of a push for a “neo-Marxist utopia”

He then alleged the concept of conversion therapy[…]was “manufactured”, and the effort to implement a ban was an “anti-religion dog whistle”