Why I regret saying gay sex is not a sin, by Farron

IT’s the question that dogged him before the last election – and Tim Farron yesterday reversed his stance on whether gay sex is sinful.

Leading the Liberal Democrats into the last general election, he claimed he did not believe the act was wrong.

But yesterday he insisted it was – and that he had been wrong to cast aside his Christian views for the sake of politics.

He told listeners to Premier, a Christian radio station, that he had been under intense pressure to talk about his beliefs.

‘Foolishly and wrongly, I attempted to push it away by giving an answer that, frankly, was not right,’ he said.

His reluctance to say he did not disapprove of gay sex had embarrassed his Lib Dem colleagues and others condemned him as a homophobe. Mr Farron, pictured, had avoided direct answers to the question during media interviews but, when asked in the Commons if he thought gay sex was a sin, he replied: ‘I do not.’

The denial provoked resentment among Christians and social conservatives who believed he had abandoned his principles for the sake of votes. He quit as party leader four days after last June’s election, saying his beliefs had made him the ‘subject of suspicion’.

Yesterday he told Premier that he had felt alone during the row: ‘I know that others were praying for me but there is a sense in which I was isolated. I had a wonderful team around me at HQ but with one exception there were no Christians.’

After quitting as party leader Mr Farron said: ‘A better, wiser person than me may have been able to deal with this more successfully, to have remained faithful to Christ while leading a political party in the current environment.’

Mr Farron is among a number of Christian politicians to find themselves under criticism for their views. Maria Caulfield has been singled out for her refusal to back the campaign to decriminalise abortion since her appointment this week as a Tory vice chairman.