UKIP PPC Roger Helmer Says NHS Should Fund ‘Gay Cure’ Therapy
UKIP MEP Roger Helmer – who is running for Parliament this week in the Newark by-election – has claimed the NHS should fund ‘gay cure’ therapy.
In an interview with the Daily Mail today, Helmer claimed that offering gay cure therapy on the NHS was no different from treating trans people.
He said: “One person is unhappy with their physical sex and wants to change it and we say, ‘OK you can do it’.
“You have a homosexual who says, ‘I’m homosexual, actually I’d rather be straight, is there a way of fixing it?’
“We say to the person who wants to change from a man to a woman or vice versa, ‘Please do that on the NHS’.
“We say to this guy, ‘That’s wicked, you’re not allowed to think about it’.”
“I don’t know if homeopathy works or not, but I will defend the right of anyone who believes it works to try it.”
He continued to claim that ‘strident’ gay rights groups like Stonewall had twisted his previous anti-gay comments, claiming they could not be described as homophobic.
He said: “Phobia is well defined in psychiatry – get a definition of it.
“We [Ukip] don’t deny there’s prejudice against minorities, and we condemn it.
“However, it isn’t a phobia. When people say ‘we support traditional marriage’, Stonewall says, ‘Homophobia, homophobia’. It’s a perfectly respectable position to take, it doesn’t require abuse and isn’t a phobia’.”
He also repeated his previous claims that same-sex relationships don’t deserve the same respect, saying: “Marriage is defined by history, culture and reproductive biology and deserves special respect in society. (I am) perfectly relaxed about other relationships but they don’t justify the same respect.”
Helmer, 70, is no stranger to controversy, and has been involved in a long-running homophobia row in recent months.
UKIP MEP Roger Helmer is standing in next week’s Newark by-election, despite a row over homophobia.
Helmer, 70, has previously said the public should be able to openly dislike gay people.
He also claimed homosexuality is not a lifestyle worthy of respect, and claimed that the media are “obsessed” with sexuality.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage had attempted to defend Helmer from accusations of homophobia, claiming that “most” over-70s feel uncomfortable about gays.
He said: “Roger Helmer is fighting this by-election for us; he’s somebody of 70 years of age who grew up with a strong Christian Bible background; he grew up in an age when homosexuality was actually imprisonable, and he had a certain set of views which he maintained for many years which he now says he accepts the world’s moved on and he’s relaxed about.
“As I say, when Roger grew up and, indeed, when he was an adult, homosexuality was illegal in this country, and he held that view for some period of time.
“And actually, if we asked the 70s and over in this country how they felt about it, most of them still feel uncomfortable.”
Same Difference 
No he didn’t that is what the Daily Fail reporter decided he had said.
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New post on Roger Helmer MEP
Deliberate, defamatory lies from the Mail on Sunday
by rogeroffice
On June 1st, the Mail on Sunday published what purported to be a report on my interview with their Political Editor Simon Walters.
In fact, the piece bore little or no relation to our interview, and appears to be simply a pre-cooked hatchet job, packed with deliberate and defamatory lies. I have written to Mr. Walters in the following terms.
Simon Walters – Political Editor, Mail on Sunday
Dear Simon,
A few days ago I took time out of my busy by-election schedule for an interview with you. You raised the issue of homosexuality. I was reluctant to spend time on it, as it is not high on my agenda and it certainly doesn’t seem to exercise voters in Newark — it has never once been raised with me in the street or on the doorstep. And I am becoming increasingly frustrated by the media’s relentless obsession with a few tangential remarks on social issues from years ago, and reluctance to address the real issues of either the euro-elections or the Newark campaign. Nevertheless I answered your questions clearly and honestly.
So I was shocked to read your subsequent story, in which you assert that I “called for gay cures on the NHS”. This is a deliberate and defamatory lie. I said no such thing. You have deliberately and knowingly published a false and defamatory statement a few days ahead of a critical by-election, with the prima facie objective of influencing the outcome of that election. I understand that this represents an offence under electoral law
The question arose because of a minor furore in the media three years ago over therapists and/or religious groups who claimed to be able to reverse an individual’s sexual orientation. There was a great deal of strident and aggressive criticism from the gay lobby at the time, both against those offering such “treatment”, and against individuals who sought it. I felt that this criticism was deeply illiberal, and that if an individual believes that a course of treatment would help him, or might help him, then in a free country he should be entitled to pursue it.
I also made a comparison with homeopathy, another therapy about whose efficacy there is widespread scepticism. I don’t know whether a person’s sexual orientation can be changed, and I don’t know if homeopathy works. In both cases I doubt it. But as a libertarian I defend the right of those who think either might work to engage with them.
Let’s be clear: I have never said that homosexuality is “an illness”, or that it can be “cured”. I have never asserted that homosexuals can be “turned”. I have never advocated “gay cures”.
In particular I would vehemently oppose any move to offer “gay cures” on the NHS. No treatment should be offered on the NHS unless it is of proven clinical efficacy and demonstrable cost-effectiveness. I am not aware of any proposal to offer “gay cures” on the NHS — this appears to be a figment of your imagination. But if there were any such proposal, I should oppose it robustly. Your suggestion that I “called for gay cures on the NHS” is a downright and preposterous lie, and a deliberate attempt to damage my reputation.
In fact you have not written up our interview at all. You have simply written up your own preconceived stereotype of what a UKIP candidate might be like, and you have totally ignored what I actually said to you. This is nothing less than a deliberate hatchet job.
Nowhere is your trashy journalism more evident than in your description of me as “a retired colonel”. Had you asked, or had you done a scrap of relevant research, you would have found that I am not a retired colonel, and that I have never served in the Armed Forces at any time.
Will you please now issue an immediate retraction and apology, ahead of Thursday’s by-election. If you fail to do so, I shall certainly refer the matter to the Press Complaints Commission, and I will also consider what legal remedies may be available.
ROGER HELMER MEP
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