Vicar Says Sorry For Being Off-Colour

International News, By Joal, 15th October, 2008

A Church of England vicar who said homosexuals should have warnings tattooed on their ‘backsides’ maintains that the comments were taken out of context.

Homophobic comments on Reverend Peter Mullen’s blog have forced him to publish an official apology in local UK paper, The Northern Echo, in which Mullen has a regular column. He also had to take the blog posts down.

It looked like the reverend might lose his place in the paper after the incident, but editor Peter Baron said the comments were merely ‘ill-advised’ and the vicar is staying on to impart more ‘wisdom’ to the local community.

Mullen’s initial comments on his personal blog asked “… homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.”

In his published apology the reverend said the comments were merely ‘off-colour jokes’, that he has voted for gay reform in the past, and in what seems a common defence for homophobes nowadays, told The Daily Telegraph that many of his ‘dear friends have been and are of that persuasion.’

“I did not intend to cause offence when I made some joking remarks about homosexuals,” wrote Mullen in his apology. “I was not actually meaning to criticise individual homosexual persons, but the promoters of gay culture.”

In the apology titled ‘Why I was wrong’ the vicar explains the gay ‘culture’ he’s opposed to, which includes public sex and promiscuity, emphasising that this abhorrence includes homosexuals and heterosexuals – although, why didn’t he want their ‘backsides’ tattooed we wonder?

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