UKIP candidate: Same-sex marriage coming in was a ‘sad day’ for all straight people

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A UKIP candidate has come under fire, after he claimed that the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales was a ‘sad day’ for straight people.

Robert Bilcliff is standing to be a UKIP councillor in Tamworth, Staffordshire in next month’s elections, and is the latest in a long line of UKIP members to express anti-gay sentiment.

He tweeted on March 29 – the day that the first same-sex marriages were held – that it was a “sad day for all us straight people”.

According to the Mail, the UKIP member also made anti-Muslim jokes on Facebook in 2012, but he denies that it was offensive.

He said: “I am not racist and never have been. I have many friends of different nationalities but I enjoy a joke every now and again”.

Nigel Farage recently made light of the ‘fruitcakes and loonies’ within his party while appearing on Have I Got News For You.

Earlier this month, Douglas Denny, a UKIP candidate in Portsmouth, came under fire for saying that gay sex was ‘disgusting’ and ‘abnormal’.

He was defended by local UKIP chairman Stuart Potter, who said that he had been “wrongly accused of being a homophobe which he is certainly not.”

Councillor David Silvester was expelled from UKIP in February, after claiming that same-sex marriage was responsible for flooding across the UK.