An anti-gay, anti-Semitic preacher has become the first-ever person to be banned from Ireland.
Steven L. Anderson was due to preach to a congregation in Dublin later this month.
Mr Anderson is the founder of a Baptist church in the US and had already been banned from the UK and the 26 countries in the Schengen area of Europe for his hateful comments.
He came to prominence in the US after he told his congregation that he prayed daily for the death of then-US President Barack Obama.
He also praised the gunman who murdered 49 people at an LGBT-friendly bar in Florida in 2016 – saying that the victims “deserved to die.”
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan. Photo: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ieThe Irish Times reports that the Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan signed the exclusion order after over 14,000 people signed a petition calling for him to be banned from the country.
The petition said he had called for the extermination of LGBT+ people to “cure AIDs” and accused him of being a Holocaust-denier and an Islamophobe.
@CharlieFlanagan we are very thankful for your decision today to ban Steven Anderson from Ireland. And thanks too to @AllOut & @GCNmag for working with us to call for his ban https://t.co/L0NYGUNs4b
— LGBT Ireland (@LGBT_ie) May 12, 2019
Minister Flanagan banned Mr Anderson from travelling to Ireland under the Immigration Act 1999.
It is the first time an exclusion order has been signed since the legislation was enacted.
