Antigay Activist: Spouse Abuser?

Prominent U.K. antigay activist Stephen Green's ex-wife has accused him of being a cruel and abusive husband and father, conduct contrary to his public persona as a devoted family man, London's Daily Mailreports.

In an extensive interview with the Mail, Caroline Green said she finally decided to divorce her husband after he beat her with a piece of wood until she bled. "I was terrified," she said. "I can still remember the pain."

She left Stephen Green (pictured) in 2006, the same year he was arrested after being accused of engaging in threatening behavior while handing out leaflets at a gay rights rally; charges were eventually dropped. The founder of the organization Christian Voice, Stephen Green regularly preaches against homosexuality, abortion, no-fault divorce, and Islam. He claimed 2005's Hurricane Katrina was a result of God's wrath toward New Orleans. In 1992 he wrote what the Mail describes as "a virulently antigay book," The Sexual Dead End. That marked an extreme shift in his views and the beginning of the end of their marriage, Caroline Green said.

She said Stephen was cruel and controlling toward her and their four children, forcing them to live in squalid conditions, severely limiting their activities, and sometimes beating the children. He also became angry whenever she was reluctant to have sex with him and claimed there was no such thing as marital rape.

Before the beating that led her to leave him after 26 years of marriage, she told the Mail, "Stephen listed my misdemeanours: I was disrespectful and disobedient; I wasn't loving or submissive enough and I was undermining him. He also said I wasn't giving him his conjugal rights."

She said she decided to speak out now because Stephen reportedly wants to have children soon with his new wife, a Kenyan immigrant. "My concerns are, what will he do to these kids?" she said.

When contacted by the Mail, Stephen Green had no comment on his wife's statements. Read the full story here.