Will Anti-LGBT Muslim Cleric Be Expelled From U.K.?

Hamza Sodagar, a Muslim cleric who is visiting London as part of a lecture series, is the target of criticism from LGBT activists who are calling on U.K. officials to revoke his visa.

LGBT activist Peter Tatchell asked the Home Office to revoke Sodagar's visa. "In a free society, Hamza Sodagar has a right to believe that homosexuality is sinful but not to preach about ways to kill lesbians and gay men. Many people with far less extreme views, who have never advocated violence, have been banned from entering the UK. Calling for a death to LGBT people crosses a red line," Tatchell said, according to U.K. newspaper The Independent.

Tatchell and other LGBT activists do not want Sodagar to lecture in London because Sodagar has said that gay men deserve the death penalty. He has previously given instructions on how to kill gay men, reports Gay Star News.

"If there's a homosexual man, the punishment is one of five things," Sodagar said in a video. "One -- the easiest one maybe -- chop their head off, that's the easiest. Second -- burn them to death. Third -- throw them off a cliff. Fourth -- tear down a wall on them so they die under that. Fifth - a combination of the above." His supporters have said these comments were taken out of context and that Sodagar does not endorse the murder of gay men.

Steven Anderson, an American anti-LGBT preacher who leads Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., was recently barred from entering South Africa and then deported from Botswana days later. LGBT activists in both countries led a lobbying effort asking their government to ban Anderson from entering the country because of his history of hate speech against LGBT people. The pastor told a Botswana radio station that the nation's government should kill LGBT people and that adulterers should be executed by stoning.

LGBT activists in the U.K. seem to be hoping that Sodagar meet the same fate. "The Home Office was wrong to grant him a visa and should now revoke it. The cleric should be ordered out of the country," said Tatchell, who has been an outspoken critic of Sodagar's visit to the nation.

Sodagar began his lecture series Monday at the Islamic Republic of Iran School in London. His lectures will continue until next Wednesday.